


Butterflies and Hurricanes

by RavenDreamer



Category: Warriors - Erin Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon level violence/threat, Gen, Omen of the Stars, PO3/OOTS spoilers ig
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-01-23 03:51:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 25,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12498124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenDreamer/pseuds/RavenDreamer
Summary: The badgers never attacked ThunderClan. Leafpool and Crowfeather left the Clans for good.Eight seasons later, their kits return to ThunderClan. Struggling with her new Clanmates' prejudices and expectations, Holly nevertheless finds a home by the lake - but it's a home that's under threat. The battle with the Dark Forest is looming, and as Holly, her brothers and her newfound friend Ivypaw become further involved, they realise that the route to saving the Clans may not be what anyone expects.





	1. Allegiances

### ThunderClan

Leader: Firestar— ginger tom with a flame-colored pelt  
Apprentice, Dovepaw (pale gray she-cat with blue eyes)

Deputy: Graystripe— long-haired gray tom

Medicine cat: Cinderpelt— dark gray she-cat

Warriors:  
Brambleclaw— dark brown tabby tom with amber eyes  
Millie— striped gray tabby she-cat  
Dustpelt— dark brown tabby tom  
Sandstorm— pale ginger she-cat with green eyes  
Brackenfur— golden brown tabby tom  
Sorreltail— tortoiseshell-and-white she-cat with amber eyes  
Cloudtail— long-haired white tom with blue eyes  
Brightheart— white she-cat with ginger patches  
Apprentice: Ivypaw (silver-and-white tabby she-cat with dark blue eyes)  
Thornclaw— golden brown tabby tom  
Apprentice: Briarpaw (dark brown she-cat)  
Squirrelflight— dark ginger she-cat with green eyes  
Spiderleg— long-limbed black tom with brown underbelly and amber eyes  
Birchfall— light brown tabby tom  
Whitewing— white she-cat with green eyes  
Berrynose— cream-colored tom  
Hazeltail— small gray-and-white she-cat  
Apprentice: Blossompaw (tortoiseshell-and-white she-cat)  
Mousewhisker— gray-and-white tom  
Apprentice: Bumblepaw (very pale gray tom with black stripes)  
Foxleap— reddish tabby tom  
Icecloud— white she-cat  
Toadstep— black-and-white tom  
Rosepetal— dark cream she-cat

Queens:  
Ferncloud— pale gray (with darker flecks) she-cat with green eyes  
Daisy— cream long-furred cat from the horseplace  
Poppyfrost— tortoiseshell she-cat (mother to Cherrykit, a ginger she-cat, and Molekit, a brown-and-cream tom)

Elders:  
Mousefur— small dusky brown she-cat  
Purdy— plump tabby former loner with a gray muzzle  
Longtail— pale tabby tom with black stripes, retired early due to failing sight

### ShadowClan

Leader: Blackstar— large white tom with huge jet-black paws

Deputy: Russetfur— dark ginger she-cat

Medicine cat: Littlecloud— very small tabby tom  
Apprentice: Flametail (ginger tom)

Warriors:  
Oakfur— small brown tom  
Apprentice, Ferretpaw (cream-and-gray tom)  
Rowanclaw— ginger tom  
Smokefoot— black tom  
Toadfoot— dark brown tom  
Applefur— mottled brown she-cat  
Crowfrost— black-and-white tom  
Ratscar— brown tom with long scar across his back  
Apprentice, Pinepaw (black she-cat)  
Snowbird— pure-white she-cat  
Tawnypelt— tortoiseshell she-cat with green eyes  
Apprentice, Starlingpaw (ginger tom)  
Olivenose— tortoiseshell she-cat  
Owlclaw— light brown tabby tom  
Shrewfoot— gray she-cat with black feet  
Scorchfur— dark gray tom  
Redwillow— mottled brown-and-ginger tom  
Tigerheart— dark brown tabby tom  
Dawnpelt— cream-furred she-cat

Queens:  
Kinkfur— tabby she-cat, with long fur that sticks out at all angles  
Ivytail— black, white, and tortoiseshell she-cat

Elders:  
Cedarheart— dark gray tom  
Tallpoppy— long-legged light brown tabby she-cat  
Snaketail— dark brown tom with tabby-striped tail  
Whitewater— white she-cat with long fur, blind in one eye

### WindClan

Leader: Onestar— brown tabby tom

Deputy: Ashfoot— gray she-cat

Medicine cat: Kestrelflight— mottled gray tom

Warriors:  
Owlwhisker— light brown tabby tom  
Apprentice, Whiskerpaw (light brown tom)  
Whitetail— small white she-cat  
Nightcloud— black she-cat  
Gorsetail— very pale gray-and-white tom with blue eyes  
Weaselfur— ginger tom with white paws  
Harespring— brown-and-white tom  
Apprentice, Boulderpaw (large pale gray tom)  
Leaftail— dark tabby tom with amber eyes  
Antpelt— brown tom with one black ear  
Emberfoot— gray tom with two dark paws  
Heathertail— light brown tabby she-cat with blue eyes  
Apprentice, Furzepaw (gray-and-white she-cat)  
Sedgewhisker— light brown tabby she-cat  
Swallowtail— dark gray she-cat  
Sunstrike— tortoiseshell she-cat with large white mark on her forehead

Elders:  
Webfoot— dark gray tabby tom  
Tornear— tabby tom

### RiverClan

Leader: Leopardstar— unusually spotted golden tabby she-cat

Deputy: Mistyfoot— gray she-cat with blue eyes

Medicine cat: Mothwing— dappled golden she-cat  
Apprentice, Willowshine (gray tabby she-cat)

Warriors:  
Reedwhisker— black tom  
Apprentice, Hollowpaw (dark brown tabby tom)  
Graymist— pale gray tabby she-cat  
Apprentice, Troutpaw (pale gray tabby she-cat)  
Mintfur— light gray tabby tom  
Icewing— white she-cat with blue eyes  
Minnowtail— dark gray she-cat  
Apprentice, Mossypaw (brown-and-white she-cat)  
Pebblefoot— mottled gray tom  
Apprentice, Rushpaw (light brown tabby tom)  
Mallownose— light brown tabby tom  
Robinwing— tortoiseshell-and-white tom  
Beetlewhisker— brown-and-white tabby tom  
Petalfur— gray-and-white she-cat  
Grasspelt— light brown tom

Queens:  
Duskfur— brown tabby she-cat  
Mosspelt— tortoiseshell she-cat with blue eyes

Elders:  
Dapplenose— mottled gray she-cat  
Pouncetail— ginger-and-white tom

### Cats outside Clans & other animals

Smoky— muscular gray-and-white tom who lives in a barn at the horseplace  
Floss— small gray-and-white she-cat who lives at the horseplace  
Crowfeather— dark gray tom who lives on the moorland near the mountains  
Jay— gray tabby tom with blind blue eyes who lives on the moorland near the mountains  
Lion— golden tabby tom with amber eyes who lives on the moorland near the mountains  
Holly—black she-cat with green eyes who lives on the moorland near the mountains  
Sol—white-and-brown tabby long-haired tom with pale yellow eyes  
Midnight— a star-gazing badger who lives by the sea


	2. Prologue

Out on the open moor, far above the sheltered Clan territories, it’s raining.

Sleeting even, the fury of leaf-bare come early to the greenleaf-bleached moor. It’s sunhigh, and barely leaf-fall, but the air is already chill. A young tabby she-cat lies curled under the meagre shelter of a gorse bush, wincing as the contractions roll through her. A dark grey tom, her mate, watches over her anxiously; this is the she-cat’s first kitting, and although she’s been trained in medicine, she says that everything seems different when you’re the patient.

She shouldn’t be out here, the tom thinks, not in the rain, not with the kits about to come. Neither of them should; they were born as Clan cats, and shouldn’t be forced to live like loners, scrabbling for the scraps of prey and territory that remain once stronger cats have taken their pick. But the Clans are no home for the tom and his mate now.

“Is there anything more I can do?” the tom asks, awkward without a task to keep himself busy.

The she-cat moans in pain, then grimaces. “Nothing much - A stick would be good. To bite down on.”

He nips one from the bush with his jaw and offers it to her. She thanks him gratefully, but when the next contraction comes the stick splinters between her teeth. Too flimsy. He looks around for something stronger, but even bushes as feeble as the one they’re sheltering under are in short supply on the vast, bare moor.

“Don’t- Don’t worry about it,” the she-cat mews softly, seeing the frustration on his face.

Reluctantly, the tom returns to her side. “We’ll move somewhere nicer once the kits are old enough,” he promises. “They have ThunderClan blood; they deserve woods to play in.”

“Don’t forget their WindClan blood,” the she-cat mews, smiling despite her obvious pain.

“Even a WindClan cat deserves better than this place,” the tom mutters. “We’re halfway up to the mountains here. The prey hardly runs.”

If there’s one thing he learnt living through one of the worst famines his Clan ever experienced, it’s that with leaf-bare’s approach meagre prey swiftly becomes no prey at all. And that new kits are always the first to starve.

“We’re going to be fine,” the she-cat mews firmly. “The kits are going to be fine, wherever we raise them.”

They subside into silence after that, except for the she-cat’s cries of pain.

As the afternoon wears on, the rain grows heavier, colder. The she-cat’s pain grows worse; so does the tom’s fear. There’s no medicine cat out on the moor, nowhere to go for help if something goes wrong… Moons ago, the tom convinced his mate to run away with him when the Warrior Code forbade them to be together, a medicine cat and a warrior from a rival Clan. It’s his fault she’s out here. The first she-cat he loved died trying to save him; the idea that he might be causing the death of his second love, however indirectly, is appalling - and appallingly possible.

“Shouldn’t they have come now?” he asks around sunset.

“First litters can take a while, Cinderpelt said.”

He sighs. “Leafpool…”

The kits are eventually born at dusk. It’s an easy birth, she tells him: three kits, one after the other, one golden, one black and one grey. Theirs. There's a bloodstain spreading on the ground under the bramble bush, black and glistening in the fading light, but the tom doesn’t know how much blood is normal and doesn’t like to ask.

“I’m sorry,” he begins awkwardly, instead. It’s something he’s needed to say, and never quite managed to, ever since the two of them ran away together.

Leafpool blinks up at him, puzzled. “You’ve been brilliant. You’ll be a great father.”

“And you’ll be a great mother.” He dares her to protest at that. “But - I’m sorry our kits won’t grow up in the Clans. I’m sorry you had to leave your family, that you had to come out here… It seems like a heavy price to pay, for me.”

“But worth it…”

“Maybe.”

“Crowfeather.” Her amber eyes bore into his. “I love you, and our kits, and this is the decision we made. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. Remember that.”

-

In the ThunderClan camp that night, a grey-furred, limping medicine cat notices three new stars blazing over the moor, even as a fourth star gutters and winks out. A flame-pelted tom tosses restlessly in his den below the Highledge, reliving an old encounter for the first time in moons. In tunnels buried deep in the earth, the wavering outline of a blind, hairless tom stretches and wakes, while beside a faraway ocean a she-badger watches the skies with a knowing gleam in her ancient eyes.

Further away again, another cat, its eyes sore from moons of scouring the night sky, regards the new stars with a different emotion: relief.

-

The next morning, just after dawn on the border between ShadowClan and ThunderClan, a patrol gather, shocked, around a ginger she-cat as she crumples to the ground, in pain even though there’s no possible way she could’ve been injured. A shuddering, awful, agonising pain, made worse by the knowledge that it isn't the she-cat’s own, not exactly. The link that always connected her and her sister, allowing them to sense each other’s emotions even over vast distances, is severed.


	3. Chapter One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Thank you everyone who's been reading so far :D I really hope you keep enjoying it!   
> (I think updates are going to move to Mondays, btw)

Three figures - golden, black and grey - stand together on a ridge overlooking the lake.

It’s been almost eight seasons since Crowfeather’s mate died giving birth on the lonely moor. That moor is browner and duller now, parched by the recent drought and battered by the storm that came after it. Crowfeather’s faded blue eyes have lost the last of their brightness. The only colour on the moor, in several senses, is the kits. Grown cats now, older than Leafpool was when she fled to the moor to be with Crowfeather.

Holly doesn’t remember her mother - her eyes weren’t even open when Leafpool passed away. All she knows is what Crowfeather can tell her, and her father rarely likes to talk about his lost mate; a question asked at the wrong time can send him into a downward spiral of silence and irritability that he might not surface from for days. Holly has long since learned to wait for Crowfeather to volunteer information, however frustratingly long that might take.

Lion won’t talk about Leafpool either, but Jay says he can remember her, just the faintest impression of warm fur and a soft voice. Holly’s argued with him about this, but he remains firm. “Just because I’m blind, doesn’t make me an idiot, Holly.” He says he recognises her from his dreams.

Most of the time, Holly is okay with not having a mother. Maybe it’d be nice to have another cat to go to when she argues with Crowfeather, or - StarClan forfend - to give her advice about toms, but, well, it’s not like Holly ever had that in her life. It’s not like there’s anyone concrete for her to miss. She and her siblings and her father survive just fine.

She’s determined about that.

-

“We’ve been talking,” Holly announces one night, as the four of them are sharing a rabbit at the mouth of the abandoned foxhole they use as a den. “Me and Lion and Jay. We’ve decided we want to leave.”

Crowfeather spits out a bite of rabbit. “Why? Where to?”

“The moor’s going to be hard to live off this leafbare, after the summer we’ve had,” Jay says. “And it’s not exactly… exciting. If we went away over leafbare, it’d be good experience, we’d be better fed, and we can come back when the prey does in newleaf.”

“There's nowhere for you to go,” Crowfeather says, discouragingly. “Everywhere the prey runs well, cats or other animals have already claimed it.”

“If we keep moving, we won't need to take much from any one place,” Lion says.

“If you keep moving, you’ll wear yourselves out by travelling, and freeze to death in the first snow.”

“So we might as well freeze to death up here, then?” Holly demands. Lion frowns at her, a warning. _If you lose your temper, Crowfeather will never agree_.

“Stop being dramatic,” Crowfeather says. “We are not going to freeze to death.”

“We’re as likely to die here as anywhere else,” Holly says, regardless of Lion’s glare.

“We’re not likely to die anywhere,” Jay says firmly. “Happy?”

“That’s not the point,” Crowfeather says. “The point is, I’m not sure the three of you are sensible enough -” he looks pointedly at Holly - “to wander off on your own.”

“Why not?” Holly asks, goaded beyond reason. “You managed. You and Leafpool.”

Jay nudges Lion, both toms regarding Crowfeather warily. She’s crossed a line, and they all know it.

“That was completely different,” Crowfeather says at last, enunciating each word carefully as if to keep from shouting. “And don’t insinuate that we didn’t - she didn’t-” He stands abruptly, and stalks away from the den, into the night. “I’ll be back soon. Lion, you’re in charge.”

“Well,” Jay says, as their father’s form vanishes into the darkness. “That went well.”

“Sorry,” Holly mutters.

“You should be. What made you mention her for?”

“We should’ve known he’d react like that,” Lion says diplomatically, but even he won't meet Holly's eyes. “Let’s bury the rest of this rabbit. I want to get to bed.”

They curl up in their respective nests, but Holly struggles to fall asleep. Crowfeather’s nest by the den’s entrance lies starkly empty, a constant reminder of their quarrel. She’s screwed it all up, sabotaged a moon of careful planning with one thoughtless remark. The chances that Crowfeather will let them leave after this are next to nothing. He hates being reminded of Leafpool, and using her name in an argument with him is a sure way to lose it. She replays the fight in her mind, seeing a thousand ways she could’ve de-escalated, talked down, just plain shut up. It seems like this is the only way she knows to act with Crowfeather, these days - one of the reasons, though she hates to admit it, that Holly is so anxious to leave the moor.

She glances towards her brothers. Jay’s head is turned towards the earth wall of the den, obscuring his face, but on her other side Lion’s eyes glint as he shifts position restlessly. The silence inside the den is oppressive.

Eventually Crowfeather returns, stalking straight to his nest without whispering a greeting. But Holly’s eyes still don’t close until the sun has already stretched its rays above the horizon.

Crowfeather doesn't raise the issue of them leaving in the next few days, and although Holly appears to be forgiven for the Leafpool comment, she assumes they've lost any chance of their trip. Morosely, she and Jay begin the task of weatherproofing the den for leafbare. The days are shortening rapidly; on the lofty, windswept moor, it won't be long before the frosts start.

“I’d like to talk to you three,” Crowfeather says, when Holly’s just about resigned herself to the moor again. “About the other night.”

Holly scans his expression warily. “I’m really sorry-” she begins.

“I know,” Crowfeather says. “I'm sorry, too. I ought to have listened to you more carefully. Maybe it is unfair to keep you up here.”

“You're letting us go?” Holly gasps. Lion and Jay, beside her, look equally shocked. Crowfeather never goes back on a decision, not with regard to his kits. Consistency, he believes, is everything.

Sure enough, Crowfeather’s next words are, “No, I meant what I said about your plan being harebrained. Would you really wander around all leafbare, being chased out of everywhere?”

Holly’s eyes narrow; they spent hours discussing their plan, basing it off information they’d gleaned from other travelling rogues who passed over the moor. It’s perfectly sound. But with the memory of the argument still fresh, she holds her tongue. “What did you want to tell us, then?” Jay asks.

“There is somewhere you can go, if you’re really set on leaving,” Crowfeather says. “The Clans.”

“But you hate the Clans,” Lion says.

Holly racks her brains, trying to remember everything Crowfeather’s said about the group of cats him and Leafpool grew up with. It's not much, and none of it positive. “Didn't you and Leafpool get chased out ‘cause you fell in love?

Crowfeather huffs. “I didn’t say I wanted you to go there. I said I'd take that over you not having a home all leafbare.”

“You're serious?” Jay asks, his clouded blue eyes narrowed.

“You'll have somewhere to sleep,” Crowfeather says wearily. “You'll have to work hard to keep it; maybe that'll help you to grow up a bit. Or I'm perfectly happy for you to stay here.”

“We'll go,” Holly says quickly. “Won't we?” She feels a pang of guilt at the lost expression that briefly crosses Crowfeather’s face, but the opportunity, even as it is, is too good to miss.

Lion and Jay nod, more hesitantly, and Crowfeather composes his expression again. And the leafbare reshapes itself before their eyes. Plans are redesigned and advice is given. Extra prey is caught in preparation for the long journey, and Crowfeather makes use of Leafpool’s old lessons to find a selection of travelling herbs. Goodbyes are said, both to Crowfeather and to the moor, all the old haunts where Holly, Lion and Jay have grown up visiting.

And that is how Holly, Lion and Jay come to be on the ridge above Clan territory a quarter moon later, gazing down at the lake below.

“It’s so huge,” Lion says, his eyes glued to the scene below. Jay prods him, his usual way of asking for a description of the territory, and Lion gives it to him, mentioning the vast, blue lake, already well recovered from the drought, and the four different territories spreading out around it. ThunderClan’s oaks and ShadowClan’s pines, all as tiny as blades of grass, RiverClan’s streams and wetlands, and - closest to them - WindClan’s moor. This is where, if the Clans accept them, the littermates will spend their leafbare.

Holly feels a growing sense of excitement. The lake territories, at this moment, hold everything: new challenges for Lion, new knowledge for Jay. New cats to get to know, albeit evil true-love-denying Clan cats. Among this newness, maybe Holly will be able to find her place better than on the well-known moor.

Crowfeather has travelled with them this far, on the pretext of showing them the way. Now, however, he has to turn back; he may have resigned himself to his kits staying in the Clans, but he himself doesn’t want to go anywhere near them. “Look after yourself,” Holly tells him in a rush of anxiety. “Don’t get too lonely. We’ll be back.”

Crowfeather nods wordlessly. Holly hopes that she sees pride in her father’s washed-out blue eyes, as well as loss. Lion and Jay join them for a final goodbye, and Crowfeather is gone, bounding across the moorland back towards home.

There’s a pause, then Holly turns back to her brothers. “What are you waiting for? We can’t stand here all day. If we hurry, we should be there before sunset.”


	4. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POV shift! Finally we get a glimpse of what's been happening in ThunderClan all this time...

As Holly watches the lake from afar, another cat, in a very different frame of mind, is viewing it from the shore, the very heart of Clan territory.

Ivypaw came to the lakeshore to sulk, but now she’s here she can’t help but stop and wonder at the change that’s taken place. The still waters stretch out almost as far as Ivypaw can see, threatening to wash away the ThunderClan scentmarks, as vast and unknowable as she remembers from her kithood. When she last came here, a quarter moon before, the lakebed was still mostly dried mud, dotted with puddles from the burgeoning rainstorm. That storm was the first rain in moons. Ivypaw can’t get used to how green the forest is since the rain restarted, how easily the prey runs, how close the nearest drink of water is with the streams near to camp flowing again. But, dramatic as the forest’s transformation had been, the sight of the full lake is something else.

“That's amazing!”

Ivypaw twists around, in time to see her sister shouldering her way through the bushes behind her. Dovepaw’s sky-blue eyes are stretched wide, her grey fur mussed from her passage and tangled with leaves. In that moment, she looks everything like the excitable sister Ivypaw grew up with - and nothing like the miracle Firestar and Cinderpelt say she is. The sight sends a spark of annoyance through Ivypaw, bringing back her bad mood in an instant.

“Haven’t you already, you know, seen it?”

Dovepaw sighs, coming to sit beside Ivypaw. “Can’t you leave the prophecy stuff alone for one moment? Besides, it’s different looking at things in real life - I’ve told you.”

“How can I leave it alone? No-one else does.” Ivypaw says, edging away from her sister. You can’t take a step in the ThunderClan camp these days without hearing about Dovepaw - stupid, perfect Dovepaw, whose 'special senses' were apparently the sole cause of the lake’s return, who’s going to save the Clans again and again, who has the power of the stars in her paws. Who’s all of seven moons old, just like Ivypaw, but treated with as much reverence as Firestar himself, because of a lucky guess and some dubious prophecy that nobody really understands.

 _There will be three, kin of your kin, who hold the power of the stars in their paws…_ It’s wool fluff, and not just because Firestar was given the prophecy by some old tom who didn’t even belong to a proper Clan. Where are the other two cats the prophecy mentioned? What makes Dovepaw special, when Ivypaw and Whitewing and Cloudtail and Squirrelflight, the rest of Firestar’s kin in ThunderClan, are as magical as dirt?

“I wish they all would,” Dovepaw says. “I hate having a destiny.”

Ivypaw snorts.

“What?” Dovepaw asks, wounded. “Aren’t I allowed to want to be a normal apprentice?”

Ivypaw watches the reflections of clouds scud across the lake. “Like you miss dawn patrols and searching the elders for ticks.”

“I didn’t ask for Firestar to change my training, okay? I didn’t ask for any of this, if that’s what you think.”

“Yeah, sure,” Ivypaw mutters, but quiet enough for her sister not to hear. Out loud, she asks, “So, why are you down here, anyway?”

“I wanted to talk to you. I had this vision, that Sedgewhisker was hurt…”

Of course, Dovepaw has only come to her sister now she needs help. And for Sedgewhisker, too, as if Ivypaw needs any more salt rubbed into her wounds. Dovepaw only knows the WindClan she-cat thanks to the mission they shared to bring the water back to the lake, the mission that spread the knowledge of Dovepaw’s prophecy all around the lake and caused the first split between the two sisters.

Before Ivypaw persuaded Dovepaw to share her visions about the brown animals blocking the stream, it was just the two of them who knew. They’d used Dovepaw’s power to explore all the way down to the lake, even penetrating the cave system that only they knew about, before they’d even really been allowed out of camp…

Now, Ivypaw snaps, “Do you think I care about a WindClan cat?”

Dovepaw sighs again.

“Oh, come on,” Ivypaw says, still addressing the water. “You can’t get annoyed with me. Why don’t you just ask your hordes of fans to help you?”

“I don’t have-”

“Yes, you do,” Ivypaw retorts. “The whole of ThunderClan worships you these days.”

Sensing that Dovepaw is about to say something else irritating, she pointedly stands up and starts walking, following the lakeshore. She doesn’t look back until she’s sure Dovepaw is no longer following her.

Alone, Ivypaw kicks a pebble moodily with one forepaw; it arcs into the lake, marring the perfectly smooth surface with angry ripples. The miracle of the returning water is spoilt, just like the fractured, wavering reflections of the oaks at the water’s edge. Ivypaw wonders if Dovepaw is still watching her, using her ‘special senses’ to spy on Ivypaw from outside the normal boundaries of vision, or if, once returned to the adulation of the ThunderClan masses, she’s already forgotten about her awkward, normal sister.

-

That night, Ivypaw wakes up in a starless, shadowy forest, wreathed in mist and smelling of rot. Hawkfrost is there already, waiting for her. The dark tabby tom started visiting her dreams the night Firestar announced Dovepaw’s prophecy; now, half a moon later, he’s the only friend Ivypaw has left in the world.

“How was the wonder of ThunderClan today?” he greets her.

Ivypaw shrugs. “Just miraculous. She was worrying about one of her WindClan friends all day. I bet she’s still telling Blossompaw about it now.”

“A WindClan cat?” Hawkfrost frowns. “I hope you’re a bit more loyal to your Clan.”

“Oh, yes.”

“That’s why I’m teaching you - so you can be the best warrior possible for your Clan. You know, I had kin in ThunderClan. I take an interest.”

“You did?” Hawkfrost is usually reticent about his past, same as when Ivypaw asks him why he’s here, not in StarClan. _How can I train ThunderClan’s best apprentice if I’m stuck in StarClan?_ is all he’ll say.

“A long time ago.”

Emboldened, she asks, “Tell me about them?”

Hawkfrost smiles. “Maybe one day. We’re wasting time. Have you been practicing the moves I gave you last night?”

“Of course!”

Their meeting progresses along its usual lines. Hawkfrost is a good teacher, adept at fighting techniques that Ivypaw’s willing to bet even her mentor, Brightheart, doesn’t know. Not that she doesn’t appreciate the one-eyed she-cat’s efforts to train her… But Hawkfrost, despite his dubious past and occasional impatience, is a more skilled warrior in every way. Ivypaw can’t stop feeling honoured that he chose her. It’s such a contrast to her life in the waking world, where the whole Clan seems to conspire to make her feel second-class.

Tonight, he teaches her an attack move where she’s supposed to leap forward and slice with her front claws. It’s similar to a move Bumblepaw was showing off a few days ago, but Ivypaw can’t seem to get it right.

“Keep your back low,” Hawkfrost tells her for the hundredth time. “If you’re all hunched up, you’ll never get enough speed.”

To demonstrate, he shoves her next attack aside effortlessly, leaving her sprawling in the slimy mud and leaf mould that covers the forest floor. She’ll have bruises tomorrow, to add to the ones she’s gained on previous nights.

Gritting her teeth, she bunches her hind legs again, preparing for the next leap.

“Lower than that!”

“I can’t get any lower,” Ivypaw protests, when she becomes aware of her name being called somewhere behind her. Oblivious, Hawkfrost motions for her to continue, but the forest is already fading. It’s Blossompaw’s voice that’s calling her, more and more urgently as Ivypaw fights to remain in the dark forest.

Eventually her eyes burst open against her will, and she’s blinking, annoyed, at the older apprentice’s face looming over hers. The sky is still the grey of approaching dawn, and Ivypaw has lost valuable training time with Hawkfrost. She won’t get back to sleep again before morning. “What is it?” she asks irritably.

“I'm surprised you're not awake already,” Blossompaw remonstrates. “Cloudtail’s patrol captured a party of rogues out on the WindClan border. Greystripe thinks there might be more of them. He wants everyone up, just in case.”

“Rogues?” WindClan and ShadowClan invasions, Ivypaw is used to, but with the Clans well settled around the lake, attacks by outsiders are rare. Shouting erupts somewhere in the camp, and she leaps up from her nest. Hawkfrost was just talking about the importance of Clan loyalty - is this her chance to fight for ThunderClan?

The cats of ThunderClan are gathered in front of the Highledge, where Greystripe, the deputy since before Ivypaw was born, is addressing the Clan. Ivypaw would normally wonder why Firestar isn’t in his place, but her focus is drawn to the shadows directly below the Highledge, where four strange cats stand surrounded by senior warriors: the rogues who are the cause of this trouble. Three of them - two toms, one muscular and one skinny, and a dark-furred she-cat - are talking over each other and the ThunderClan cats. A third, dapple-pelted tom stands silently, without resisting, his expression unreadable in the dim light.

“...And don’t come back until you’re sure there are no rogues left on the territory,” Greystripe finishes, shouting to make himself heard over the clamour. “Well, hurry up!” As the two patrols leave the clearing, he turns to the captured rogues. “I suppose we’d better deal with you four now. Did you have to invade while Firestar’s at the Moonpool?”

“We’re not trying to invade you!” the she-cat says, her green eyes flashing. “We didn’t mean to cross your precious border!”

“That’s what they all say,” Thornclaw says darkly. “Your friend’s the one who used to hang around ShadowClan, isn’t he? Sunny? Soldier?”

“Sol, actually,” the quiet tom interjects.

“How do we know you’re not all spies?” someone calls out.

“This is ridiculous,” the skinny tom says. He’s a tabby, with pale blue eyes that don’t seem to focus properly, and half a head shorter than his companions. “We’re not spies, we’re not attacking you, we’re not anything. We’re not even with Sol - we ran into him just before you. Our parents belonged to the Clans, and we were trying to join you before you captured us. I don’t know why we tried.”

“Yeah, and hedgehogs fly,” Thornclaw says.

“Did someone make you deputy behind my back?” Greystripe asks. “It’s easy to check their story. What are your parents’ names?”

The she-cat answers, “Crowfeather and Leafpool.”

The names mean nothing to Ivypaw, but she feels the waves of shock ripple around the camp. Blossompaw looks as confused as she is, but most of the older cats are exchanging meaningful looks. Brambleclaw and Squirrelflight are talking rapidly, too quietly for Ivypaw to catch. Greystripe, on the Highledge, takes a minute to compose himself before he speaks. “Call back the patrols. If you are who you say you are, I guess you have the right to shelter here for tonight.”

Reluctantly, the crowd disperse, many still talking to each other in hushed tones. Greystripe shows the Crowfeather’s and Leafpool’s kits to an empty den Cinderpelt usually uses for her less-sick patients where they can rest uninterrupted, with a politeness that Ivypaw is willing to bet isn’t usually shown to prisoners picked up at the border. Blossompaw exchanges a baffled look with Ivypaw, then runs over to Greystripe, her father, presumably to beg him for details of the incident.

Ivypaw is back in her nest before she remembers the fourth rogue, and wonders if she’s the only cat who realises Sol has vanished.


	5. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Sorry for the unexpected hiatus - things irl have been pretty busy. Anyway, here's chapter 3. I hope you like it!

It’s mid-morning when Firestar asks to speak to them. The ThunderClan leader is a battle-scarred ginger tom, with a strong jawline and a surety to his bearing that lends him handsomeness despite the greying hairs around his muzzle. Holly is impressed by his obvious authority over his Clanmates; as he leads the three littermates to his den, he greets any cat they pass, and inquires about their duties in a way that makes quite clear what he expects to be done. Jay nudges Lion in a way that suggests he thinks Firestar is far too fussy, but Holly admires the care he puts into keeping the Clan running. He’s a natural leader, and it shows.

He is also, he tells them, their grandfather.

“Leafpool - my daughter - disappeared quite a long time ago,” he says, once they’ve settled themselves into his den, a sandy cave which overlooks the camp. “I’d given up hope of ever hearing from her, if I’m honest. We could only guess what happened to her. I had no idea she’d had kits.”

The hope in his gaze is painful. Holly says hurriedly, before Lion can stop her, “I’m sorry. We never met her. She - she died giving birth.”

“Ah.”

The cave is quiet, suddenly, quieter than four cats are capable of making it.

“I'd accepted as much,” Firestar says finally. “Squirrelflight, my other daughter - well, never mind. It's good to hear that she didn't die in vain.” There’s grief glinting in the leader’s brilliant green eyes, nestled in those extra grey hairs, and Holly realises it's been there throughout their meeting, probably since Leafpool left ThunderClan.

“I suppose,” Lion says awkwardly.

The cave is still again, old griefs mingling with new. It's hard to know what to say, or who should be comforting who. “I wish you could've known her,” Firestar murmurs. “She was a great cat…” And then, “Well, that doesn't solve the problem of what to do with you. Do you want to stay here?”

Jay says, “We want to stay for leafbare, if we can.”

Firestar doesn’t seem pleased by that answer. “The Clan won’t approve of you visiting for so long, if you don’t intend to join us,” he muses. “I’ll have to see.”

“We can help out,” Holly jumps in. “Surely you can use extra hunters over leafbare?”

Surely her hope of escape isn’t over before it began…

“ThunderClan is already fuller than it’s ever been,” Firestar says. “And - look, I want to trust you, but I have to obey the will of the Clan - there’s the question of your loyalties. If we’re attacked by rogues, how do we know if you’ll side with us or them? How can you, if you have commitments to both sides? Greystripe says you were found with a rogue who’s caused us a lot of trouble in the past.”

“The Sol thing was an accident!” Holly begins, at the same time as Lion says, “I promise our loyalties will lie with you while we’re with ThunderClan. Any rogues who threaten our kin aren’t friends of ours.”

“Those are strong words,” Firestar says slowly. Holly holds her breath.

Lion says, “We can -”

“Excuse me?” A petite grey she-cat pokes her head into the cave. When she sees who Firestar’s with, her blue eyes widen and she backs out, murmuring apologetically, but Firestar calls her back, affection in his voice.

“Sorry, I'm late for training again. Holly, Lion, Jay, this is my apprentice, Dovepaw. Dovepaw… These are ThunderClan’s newest members. They'll be shadowing the apprentices for the next few days, I think. We'll only be a minute or so more; why don't you wait for us at the camp entrance?”

Dovepaw hastily disappears. Holly hears the patter of her footsteps all the way down from the cave. “‘ThunderClan’s newest members’?” Jay echoes. “That was quick.”

Firestar smiles. “What was I saying, again? Oh yes - I see no real reason why your loyalties should be called into question so early. As long as you can prove to your Clanmates that you’re trustworthy, you’re free to stay. I’ll make the announcement this evening.”

That’s not what you were saying, Holly thinks, not at all. But she doesn’t want to say anything that might alter Firestar’s decision, now he’s made it. Whatever has changed his mind, if it allows Holly, Jay and Lion to stay in ThunderClan, it’s decidedly a good thing.

“Well, as much as I’d like to catch up with you, we can’t sit here all day,” Firestar is saying. “I have an apprentice waiting, after all. How about you three join in our hunting practice, and we can talk on the way? I’m afraid Dovepaw’s still learning the basics, but there should be something you can get out of it, if only the lay of the land.”

And without further ado, the ThunderClan leader ushers them back out of his den.

-

The littermates spend the rest of the day in reasonable tranquility, shadowing Dovepaw’s hunting training in the ThunderClan woods. It’s a beautiful day, warm and golden as only the end of greenleaf can be. The plentiful sunlight filters through the still-thick canopy of ThunderClan’s oaks and beeches, tinting the forest tracks in shades of green and yellow and russet. To Holly’s eyes, it makes ThunderClan territory seem almost unearthly, a haven, especially compared to the stark, barren moor where Crowfeather is. Neither Firestar nor Dovepaw mention the ignominious circumstances of the littermates’ arrival, either, and Holly can almost imagine that her memories of capture and suspicion of the night before are nothing but a nightmare, that their real arrival was civilised, planned and daylit.

To make up for the late start, or perhaps to impress the newcomers, Firestar puts his apprentice through her paces thoroughly, encouraging her to scent for prey after almost every step they take, and to track and catch whatever she detects with minimal assistance from him. After each kill, he helps her to analyse her technique - “Did the sparrow see you coming?” “Did you arch your back fully before you leapt?” - but generally Dovepaw performs well, spotting prey where even Jay’s heightened senses of smell and hearing cannot, and Firestar has plenty of praise for her as well as criticism.

Holly and her brothers don’t disgrace themselves, either, catching several plump mice and a stray rabbit between them. Even Jay, who due to his blindness usually struggles in unfamiliar environments, helps with several of the catches, which particularly impresses Firestar. Several times he stops the hunting to say “You’ll have to teach the Clan that” or “We could use your help on our night patrols”. The permanence that this implies thrills Holly almost as much as her pride in her brother.

The only thing that Holly dislikes on this first, charmed day is the undergrowth, so much more of it than on the moor, seemingly determined to block Holly’s view or to twine itself around her leg to trip her just as she prepares for a killing strike. “You don’t need to screech to a halt every time you see a bramble,” Lion remarks as they’re walking back to camp, weary-legged through the twilit forest.

“You don’t have to run straight into all the ones you see,” Holly retorts. “Not all of us have scratch-resistant pelts like yours.”

They arrive at the camp entrance - a cunningly woven barrier of thorns that Holly suspects Crowfeather would’ve been glad of at the entrance to their own den, worrier that he is - at the same time as another group of cats, who Firestar explains are the evening patrol. Firestar motions for their patrol to stop and wait for each cat to take their turn through the narrow opening. Holly and Jay fall into conversation with a one-eyed she-cat called Brightheart, who offers to introduce Jay to the ThunderClan medicine cat, Cinderpelt. “I didn’t know you were interested in medicine,” Holly mutters to her brother, who shrugs.

Holly’s wandering attention is caught by Brightheart’s apprentice, Ivypaw, who is studiously watching the entrance to the thorn barrier. Holly wonders if she’s aware of how Dovepaw - her sister? - is looking at her, desperate to tell her something. She half wonders if she ought to intervene, but then Ivypaw, taking advantage of the other cats’ conversation, scampers through the thorn barrier ahead of her mentor, leaving Dovepaw disgruntled outside.

Inside the camp, Poppyfrost, a young queen, approaches Holly with the offer to give her a tour of the hollow, which she is glad to accept. ThunderClan is large and complicated, requiring so many different dens - warriors, apprentices, elders, medicine, nursery, overflow - that Holly wouldn’t know where to start finding her way about on her own. In the cosy, milk-scented nursery, the tortoiseshell she-cat proudly shows Holly her kits, peacefully sleeping under the care of an older she-cat called Ferncloud.

“Are you planning on having any yourself?” Poppyfrost asks as they leave.

“No fear.” The words slip out before Holly can think whether they’ll cause offence. It’s odd to think that Poppyfrost is only a few moons older than she is; her concerns are so different, her path in life so much more… settled. Holly can’t imagine being a mother in three moons’ time - or ever, really. But then, she’s never been well acquainted with mothers or motherhood.

“You just need to meet the right tom,” Poppyfrost says, mistaking Holly’s sorrow for something else. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to my mate, Berrynose; he’s marvellous.”

After a few minutes of conversation, Holly realises that Poppyfrost is probably the only cat to hold quite that opinion of Berrynose. But there’s no harm to the cream-furred tom beneath his bluster, and Holly finds herself warming to Poppyfrost despite her slightly questionable judgement. The three of them choose enough prey from the fresh-kill pile to share - Poppyfrost has to explain what this is to Holly, admirably refusing to allow Berrynose to scoff at this lack of knowledge - and sit down to eat at the edge of a larger group of cats. Some of the cats here are young, including Berrynose’s sister, Hazeltail, but many are older, of an age to have known Leafpool when she was growing up in ThunderClan. Noticing this, Holly feels a trickle of anxiety. These are the cats who reacted so strongly to the mention of her parents’ names; getting to know them is going to be a very different matter to knowing Poppyfrost and Berrynose, who were barely born when Leafpool left, and, Holly learns, consequently had her name airbrushed from their kithoods.

An older, brown-furred she-cat who introduces herself as Mousefur is the first to broach the subject. “Your mother and father were the talk of the Clans, if you don't mind me saying so. Running off together like that! We thought WindClan had stolen her at first. It's nice to see Firestar’s kin back in ThunderClan, though…”

“Nice for Firestar, maybe.” It’s a white tom who speaks: Firestar’s nephew, Cloudtail. “No offence to you, Holly. But I think there are cats in this Clan who’d rather have the past buried.”

“Why would that be?” Hazeltail asks. Like her brother, Holly suspects, the grey-and-white she-cat has a habit of putting her paw in it. Mercifully, Cloudtail merely gives her a dark look before changing the subject. “You had an easy journey here, did you, Holly?”

“Yes…” Holly searches for Lion’s face among the crowd, and spots him talking to Firestar and a few other senior warriors. Catching her eye, he gives her a reassuring smile, but doesn’t come over. Jay is nowhere to be seen - presumably he’s still with Cinderpelt, whatever the two of them have found to talk about for so long. It feels strange, the three of them being so separate. Holly wonders if this is how evenings will be from now on.

“Yes,” she says again, since Cloudtail and the others are still looking at her, and asking more questions. “Yes, it was a good journey. Lots of good views. Yes, actually, everyone’s been great. It’s good to be here.”


	6. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And things are beginning to happen... (Also, return of the Ivypaw pov)

It’ll be Ivypaw’s and Blossompaw’s turn to have the visitors shadow their training tomorrow. Obviously, the kit wonder got the first turn - two turns, in fact, if you count the morning and afternoon sessions, and both of them on her own - but now that’s over, Ivypaw supposes Firestar has to let the other apprentices have their chance. Otherwise someone might accuse him of favouritism or something.

Despite Brightheart’s threats of an early start, Ivypaw stays up later than usual, talking to Blossompaw and Bumblepaw about the newcomers. Rumours have been flying among the apprentices of ThunderClan all day, only compounded by the older cats’ reluctance to confirm or deny. Who were Crowfeather and Leafpool, and what under StarClan did they do? Blossompaw spins such a terrifying yarn, all kidnaps and conspiracy, that Ivypaw almost hopes that it’s true despite its improbability.

When she finally does fall asleep, it’s to be confronted with Hawkfrost’s anger. Her night-time mentor demands why she’s arrived late, why she disappeared last night - he’s displeased with the loss of their training time, particularly when Ivypaw explains that she has to leave early again. “It’s Brightheart’s fault really,” she pleads. “She wants to run through my moves before the visitors see them. She’s such a worry guts!”

Hawkfrost frowns. “You didn’t tell her that you’re already running through your moves with me?”

Ivypaw shakes her head timidly. To her relief, it seems to be the right answer.

“Good. This stays between you and me, understand? We’ll just have to make the most of the time we have. Let me see your defence.”

The tom lunges forward, his front legs snaking out to entangle hers. Ivypaw twists away in the nick of time, remembering to land a blow on Hawkfrost’s flank as she does so.

“Almost,” Hawkfrost says. “Next time, aim for the eyes. And _don’t stop to be complemented!_ ”

Hastily dodging his next attack, Ivypaw hopes that this means Hawkfrost has forgiven her. And as the night wears on - as the trees in the forest sway and groan, as the pallid light dims then lightens again - it seems that he has. The only time he mentions her daytime life again is right at the end, when he stops the practice to ask her, “So who are these visitors that you told me about? Are they rogues? Cats from another Clan?”

“Rogues, I think,” Ivypaw says, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on Hawkfrost in case the question was merely a decoy for another attack. But when the dark tabby merely smiles and motions for her to talk on, she realises his interest is genuine, and relaxes slightly. “Their parents weren’t, though. Have you heard of Crowfeather or Leafpool?”

“I might’ve,” Hawkfrost licks at his chest fur, thinking. “Leafpool, now, was she Firestar’s daughter, by any chance?”

This corroborates with the stories that Blossompaw was telling, so Ivypaw nods.

“Kin of Firestar’s kin, eh?”

Ivypaw stares at him. “You don’t mean- But the prophecy can’t refer to rogues!”

“Why do you think Firestar was so keen to let them stay with you, then? I’m willing to bet you that he already knows which two of them are part of it - not that he’ll have told them yet.”

“Really?”

“I’d watch out for powers if I were you,” Hawkfrost says, which doesn’t really answer her question. “Cats not being injured when they ought to be, that sort of thing. Anyway, you need to be going. Don’t want you to be late for your run through!”

And with that, the forest fades around Ivypaw, and she finds herself back in the apprentices’ den, with Blossompaw waiting impatiently for her so they can go and eat breakfast.

-

Ivypaw thinks about her conversation with Hawkfrost as she walks to the day’s training. Originally, Brightheart had planned to put on a mock battle, but apparently Thornclaw stepped in and made her change it to tree climbing instead. “Which we don’t normally start cats off on until leaf-fall,” Brightheart finishes apologetically. “So I'm sorry about that. I think we’ll stay near the camp. The trees here are more straightforward for beginners.”

Having grown up on a moor, none of the visitors have much experience with climbing - less even than Ivypaw, who climbed her fair share of trees on her illegal expeditions out of camp with Dovepaw. Ivypaw finds herself paired with Lion, the golden tom. Blossompaw is working with the she-cat, Holly, while Brightheart talks to the blind tom, Jay. Lion, with his large, muscled frame, is intimidating on the ground, but, gingerly padding along the widest branch of a low-stooping oak, he is less than imposing. His tabby fur spikes in panic every time the branch sways beneath him.

Bored with his slow pace, Ivypaw takes her practice higher and higher into the canopy. _Tiptoe along a thin, spindly branch. Claws extended. Keep your eye on your (imagined) prey. Leap._ She varies the drill, picturing enemy warriors instead of mice, one of Hawkfrost’s attack moves instead of the techniques Brightheart taught her for a nice, clean kill. _This branch, here. Further into this leafy patch. They’ll never see you coming…_

The branch creaks suddenly, and Ivypaw sways, losing her balance. The distance to the ground, exciting a few minutes before, now just seems rather… far. Her claws dig harder into the branch, and that’s all it takes - wood rends, the branch drops from beneath her, the ground is rushing towards her faster and faster…

Lion is there; she isn’t sure how. He takes her weight, letting out an “oof” as she tumbles onto his broad back. She clings there, terrified. The splintered tree branch crashes to the ground beside them, a whisker’s breadth from Lion’s face.

“T-thanks,” she manages as Lion lowers her to the ground, her pelt hot with embarrassment. If she’s managed to hurt him, grabbing onto him like that, she will possibly never be able to leave her den again.

“Don’t mention it.”

It’s only when the shock of the fall fades, when Ivypaw’s dragged herself slowly and carefully to her feet and checked that nothing feels broken or sprained, when her heart’s started to beat at something like its normal speed again, that it dawns on her that something might be wrong. Lion, taking her back to camp on Brightheart’s instructions, is walking with a fast, sure gait, not at all what you would expect of a cat who’s just had an apprentice fall on top of them. Ivypaw sneaks a look at his back; there are no signs of bruising, either. And most worryingly of all, the claw marks that ought to be there - the claw marks that Ivypaw, to her shame, can remember making, holding on to him in terror - have vanished, as if they were never there.

Later that day, she remembers Hawkfrost’s words: _Cats not being injured when they ought to be_. As if she needs more evidence that the visitors are far more than they appear.

-

“What do you want to tell my brother?”

“I-”

Ivypaw has only been talking to Holly for a few heartbeats, and already she wishes that she could rewind the conversation and try again. Dragging Holly here, to the shadiest corner of the ThunderClan camp, and then refusing to tell her why, was not the good idea it seemed to be. Ivypaw knows that it’s the right thing to do, telling Lion about the prophecy; she certainly isn't going to stick to any official line of secrecy that Firestar might be pushing, not after the trouble that his previous non-secrecy caused. Foolishly, she thought that, after the morning's events, finding Holly first would be a less intimidating task than going up to Lion alone.

It didn’t take her long to realise that she was wrong.

“It’s a secret,” Ivypaw says, trying to avoid Holly’s gaze. “It’s really important, though - I need to tell him.”

Holly wrinkles her nose. “If you’re asking questions about our parents, please don’t. I don’t think he or I can deal with any more kit-rumours about them.”

“I said tell, not ask.” Ivypaw’s quite sure that she can get through her message without asking any questions. She knows more than enough about the prophecy already.

“Sure, whatever. What exactly is it that you need to tell Lion but I can’t know?”

“It’s something that concerns him,” Ivypaw says, frustrated. “And you can’t know because it’s secret!”

“Lion wouldn’t keep a secret from his littermate.”

Jay says, “Let her talk to him.”

Ivypaw almost jumps out of her pelt; she didn’t notice the blind tom coming up from behind them. Neither, by the looks of it, did Holly.

“Seriously, Jay?”

“It’s something important; I can sense it. Holly, you find Lion. And you-” he directs the words towards Ivypaw “-can you show us somewhere a bit more private than this camp? I don’t want us to be overheard.”

Holly looks sceptical, but follows her brother’s instructions without questioning him; Ivypaw finds herself doing the same, wondering slightly at the authority that Jay speaks with.

Standing in front of the three older cats, in a clearing some way outside the camp, Ivypaw feels even more nervous about what she’s about to say. What if they don’t believe her, or they already know? But it’s too late to back out now. Ivypaw takes a deep breath.

“Um, there’s this prophecy…”


	7. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, sorry for the wait between chapters!  
> Squirrelflight (finally) appears in this chapter

The words spill out of Holly’s mouth, unchecked, almost before Ivypaw’s finished speaking. “Are you being serious?”

“Why wouldn't I be?” Ivypaw looks hurt, then petulant. “I knew it was a mistake to let you listen! Why did you even come here if you weren't going to believe me?”

Because Jay made her, because he sees something in this sullen, unprepossessing apprentice that Holly frankly doesn't, because she wasn't going to let Jay and Lion go without her. She stops herself from saying any of this out loud; picking an argument with one of the apprentices isn't going to improve her precarious position in ThunderClan. She shrugs. Let one of her brothers handle this.

“Can you tell me the prophecy again?” Jay is asking.

Ivypaw takes on a mock-mystical tone. “There will be three, kin of your kin, who will hold the power of the stars in their paws.”

“And that's it? Whose kin?” Jay asks.

“Firestar’s. That's all he told us. This old cat told him ages ago. It's from beyond even StarClan, apparently.”

“Beyond StarClan?” Lion asks, puzzled.

Jay might know more - he's spent most of the past two days, when they're not out with the apprentices, in Cinderpelt’s den - but all Holly and Lion know about the Clan's religion is the basics, details that Crowfeather used to mention. Strange dreams, dead cats with stars in their pelts; Holly’s never been sure if she believes in them, or if they even care about cats like her. Nevertheless, a prophecy that circumvents StarClan just seems even more like a hoax, in her opinion.

“You said us,” Jay says suddenly. “Exactly how many cats know about this beyond you and your sister?”

Ivypaw hesitates. “E-everyone. It was only when you arrived that cats had something better to talk about.”

“And they all know that two cats are missing from the prophecy?” Jay asks.

Ivypaw nods, looking at Lion. “You, and one other cat. Someone who's kin of Firestar.”

 _Me or Jay_ , Holly thinks. She exchanges a glance with Lion.

“Thank you for telling us this,” Lion says, gently. “Do you want to go back to camp now? We need to talk about this on our own.”

“It's fine,” Ivypaw says. “T-thank you for rescuing me.”

She all but flees back to camp. The littermates wait, in silence, until she's out of earshot. The twilight woods are still and hushed around them, the first stars beginning to appear in the darkening sky. A moth - or maybe a late butterfly - flits past Holly’s face.

“Well,” Holly says.

“Well,” says Jay, in a slightly different tone.

“You don't believe what she's saying, do you?”

“Holly. I have to.”

-

Turns out, the reason Jay’s spent so much time hanging out with Cinderpelt isn't because he's discovered a newfound love of herbs or medicine, but because he's been pumping her about the prophecy. Turns out, he knew about all of this way before Ivypaw sussed Lion, way before he decided to share. Turns out, the reason for this is because he read Cinderpelt’s mind - read her mind - the very first morning they were in ThunderClan. In the eight seasons since their birth, Holly has kept very few things from her brothers - but, turns out, Jay has been keeping this thing from her, all along.

She should've guessed. Jay's knowledge, Jay's empathy, Jay’s remarkable self-sufficiency. Lion’s reckless fights, Lion’s impeccable good luck. Holly has always thought of her brothers as extraordinary; it's just, she didn't realise that their extraordinariness extended beyond her little family.

Everything that happened since and before Holly arrived in ThunderClan is turning on its head.

Lion (allegedly) didn't realise either, which ought to make things better. He certainly shares in Holly's annoyance that Jay didn't tell them earlier. But - Lion might have been in the dark earlier, but now he's part of the club. Magical.

“Don't tell Firestar that we know,” Jay is advising. “Not until we know what this is for, and why he didn't tell us.”

“It's obvious, isn't it?” Holly says. “He doesn't trust us. You heard him when we arrived.”

“That can't be all,” Lion says. “And besides…”

That united front, against her. Holly shouldn't let this change things, but she knows that it will.

-

There's one cat in ThunderClan who Holly’s not spoken to, and in a way it's the most important one: Squirrelflight, Leafpool’s sister. Crowfeather told Holly and her brothers a story about the Clans once, a rare event. A long time ago, before Leafpool, Crowfeather had gone on a journey, with a few young cats from all four Clans. The destination of the journey and its purpose escape Holly now, but the camaraderie that Crowfeather found with this group does not. Squirrelflight was the youngest of the travellers, the beating heart of the group, brave and fiery and astonishingly close to her sister back home.

But Squirrelflight, for all her fierce loyalty, has eluded Holly and her siblings. She's forever busy, flitting around the camp in between patrols and training and den-building. Holly’s tried looking for her at mealtimes, she’s tried asking after her, leaving messages with Cinderpelt and Firestar and Brambleclaw, the stern tom who is Squirrelflight’s mate, all to no avail.

“Sometimes,” Cinderpelt says that evening, when Holly comes to her with another message, “a cat doesn't want to be talked to. Leave her be. She's had a shock, I think, with the three of you coming to ThunderClan.”

Despite this, Holly can't give up. She's unsure why; common sense dictates that Cinderpelt is right, there's no point in seeking a cat who doesn't want to be sought. Maybe it's because she's all the more anxious to get in touch with her non-magical kin. Maybe it's simply because, having started on a task, she can't bear to leave it unfinished. She perseveres, and about a quarter moon after her arrival in ThunderClan she manages to collar Squirrelflight before the morning patrols go out.

“What do you want?” the ginger she-cat asks, more than a little grouchily.

She’s had a shock, Holly reminds herself. Used to Crowfeather’s black days, Squirrelflight’s irritability doesn’t put her off as much as the other cat might have hoped. “I was - I was hoping to talk to you. About Leafpool, I guess.”

“You have nothing better to do than bug me about her?”

“I’d just like to talk. Not now, if you don’t want, maybe tonight. Crowfeather said that the two of you were close.”

Squirrelflight’s mouth twists. “That’s one thing he didn’t get wrong, then.”

“Would that be okay?” Holly asks, forcing herself to stay calm. “I don’t want to - to bug you. I just want to know.”

They’re standing together at the edge of the hollow, and Squirrelflight, sighing, motions for them to go out into the forest. “She wouldn’t have given up either. It’s strange - the three of you act, even look, so much like Crowfeather, and then sometimes I see just a flash of her in you.”

“You’ve been watching us?” It’s Holly’s turn to be on the defensive; Squirrelflight has just spent a quarter moon avoiding her, after all.

“You've been living in my home for the past quarter moon.”

“Right. So, will you tell me about her?”

“What is there to tell?” Squirrelflight says bitterly. “She was a great cat, Leafpool. Everyone loved her. I loved her, Cinderpelt loved her, our parents loved her. She had such a calling; she was the perfect medicine cat apprentice. StarClan knows I used to envy her that. And then Crowfeather came along, and she threw it all away. ”

The words tumble out, one after another. By the time she comes to a stop, Squirrelflight’s breathing hard, her green eyes glittering. “StarClan, I didn’t realise I was so annoyed at her until I said it.”

“I'm sorry…”

“The last time I saw her, we argued,” Squirrelflight says, quieter now. “We never used to argue, but that night we both said horrible things, and in the morning she was gone.”

“I think she'd been building up to leaving for a while,” Holly says.

“Maybe,” Squirrelflight says. “But I doubt I encouraged her to stay. If I'd kept my temper that night…”

“It was her decision.”

Squirrelflight sighs. “I’m sorry, Holly. None of this is your fault.”

“It’s alright.” There doesn’t seem much else to say. None of this is Squirrelflight’s fault, either. Holly isn’t sure that it’s even her parents’ fault: Leafpool who gave up so much for her mate and for the kits she never knew, and Crowfeather who shares the high moor with only her shade and their kits’ empty nests.

Maybe things just happen, spurred on by choices too tiny and inevitable to be called fault.

“I'm going to stay out here for a while,” Squirrelflight says at length. “Could you tell Brambleclaw I'll join him on his way?”

Half reluctant, half relieved, Holly goes.


	8. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been forever and I'm sorry :/ Thank you to the people who left kudos while this was dead, it's honestly meant so much! I'm almost free for the summer so hopefully there'll be a bit less time before the next update...

The leaf-fall passes.

The forest turns gold, and then brown, a mirror image of its transformation after the drought. For Ivypaw, experiencing her first leaf-fall, it's like living in a fire, even though the days are shortening rapidly and the wind is colder every day. For a glorious moon, all the apprentices’ pelts, and their nests, are permanently festooned with scraps of fallen leaves.

Holly, Lion and Jay have settled into ThunderClan almost seamlessly. If not for Firestar’s reluctance for them to join in with border patrols and Gatherings, they’d seem like any other warriors. Even Jay seems to have adjusted to the forest; Firestar sometimes asks for his advice on night hunting, a skill the leader is prioritising thanks to the long nights and dwindling prey. There’s no further display of magical powers from any of them, and although Dovepaw’s as smug as ever about her power, she gives no sign of knowing that at least one of the other prophesied cats has joined her.

The excitement of greenleaf has died down, along with the leafy bushes in the forest and the tall spiky plants from RiverClan’s marshes, replaced by the more mundane worries of illness and food and shelter.

Ivypaw doesn’t miss it.

“There’s been signs of a rogue again, up near WindClan,” Brightheart says one afternoon, as Ivypaw’s helping Blossompaw and Hazeltail repair the nursery wall. “Firestar wants to send a patrol to check it out. I told him you’d want the experience.”

Experience of fighting, of serving her Clan, not experience of sniffing at days-old scent trails. But Brightheart’s been trying, so Ivypaw fakes enthusiasm, abandoning her pile of twigs and following Brightheart to the camp entrance, where Cloudtail is waiting. Brightheart and Cloudtail walk close together, tails twined, and Ivypaw can see right away that this patrol is nowhere near as serious as Brightheart was making out.

It’s a crisp, blustery day, one of the nicer ones that late leaf-fall has to offer, although now stormclouds hover on the horizon beyond the moor, promising rain. The daylight is already fading. Stripped, skeletal trees creak backwards and forwards in the wind; Ivypaw rabbit-hops her way to the WindClan border across decomposing piles of dead leaves. Other than the sound of the wind, the woods are almost silent, most of the prey bedded down for leaf-bare. There’s no sign of cats, other than the fading scent trail of the dawn hunting patrol. Upwind of the border, the patrol approach more cautiously, all their senses alert.

Cloudtail whispers suddenly, “There he is! Stalking our prey, the fox-heart!”

“Is he new?” Brightheart asks, her head turned so she can take in the whole scene with her good eye.

“Maybe… No, I think he used to hang around ShadowClan territory, a while back.”

Ivypaw follows their gaze. The rogue, engrossed in stalking a robin by the border stream, has a dappled pelt that from a distance looks almost tortoiseshell. It takes Ivypaw a long moment to remember where she recognises that colouring from: Sol, the rogue who came to ThunderClan two moons ago, the same night that Lion and Holly and Jay arrived.

The other two are conferring in hushed voices. Brightheart hisses to Ivypaw “Stay here!” and then the two warriors are racing forward, one on either side of Sol, sending the robin fluttering away in a rush of panic. Ivypaw half-heartedly swipes at it as it flies past her. Her eyes are fixed on the scene in front of her, Brightheart and Cloudtail circling Sol with claws bared.

Sol smiles - Ivypaw remembers that, too, his almost eerie calm. The threatened rain is falling, softly now but already growing in intensity.

“You can sheathe your claws if you want. Don’t worry - I’ll come quietly.”

-

That night, Ivypaw races to her nest as soon as she’s finished her evening meal, not waiting with the other apprentices for one of the mentors to come along and tell them to go. Early bedtimes have become her routine this leaf-fall - a trick to maximise her time with Hawkfrost. The dark tabby is busy, these days. Ivypaw’s still his priority, he swears, but he has other pressing business to attend to, and often this requires him to send her away when the moon’s barely begun to set.

Ivypaw needs to spend as long as possible with Hawkfrost tonight, because she needs to tell him about Sol. Hawkfrost is the only cat she trusts not to laugh her off or dismiss her with some vague comment. He’s put up with her moaning about Dovepaw and her all-seeing irritant for moons, after all, and he let her talk to him about Lion’s powers - or maybe he even brought the subject up, she can’t remember. Anyway, perhaps because he lives in a supernaturally starless forest that she can only visit during her dreams, Hawkfrost never dismisses Ivypaw when she talks about other strange things.

And Sol is a very strange thing.

For a start, Cloudtail and Brightheart had no intention of capturing Sol - the purpose of the patrol was to chase away the rogue who’d been stealing ThunderClan prey, not to bring him back to camp and offer him some more. But when Sol offered to ‘come quietly’, the two warriors took him to camp without a second thought. It was dusk when they got him back to the hollow, which means Sol’s been given the den the visitors used before Firestar moved them in with the warriors, so Firestar can talk to him in the morning. Ivypaw half wonders if the reason Sol was so eager to be captured was so he could get an effortless night’s rest.

Meanwhile, Sol has the run of the camp. Thornclaw and a few others want to shut him up in the abandoned Twoleg nest - “Keep him away from our supplies” - but Firestar overrules them.

“He’s sworn that he won’t escape, and he wouldn’t dare steal something with so many of us around. We don’t need to treat everyone like some kind of - of Tigerstar.”

Sol thanks Firestar so graciously that Ivypaw’s sure Briarpaw almost swoons. All the apprentices - save Ivypaw - have close to worshipped Sol since he walked into the ThunderClan hollow, even though last time he came they were all shying away from the dangerous, smooth-mouthed rogue. All through the meal he regales them with stories about the places he’s been, the different cats he’s known in his life of wandering. A pair of toms who share a Twoleg barn, the rogues who forage in what remains of the Clans’ old territories, a crotchety old badger who lives by the sea. Another Clan living in a gorge somewhere, who Sol doesn’t much like. Listening at the edge of the group, Ivypaw’s torn between longing to be swept up in the stories like the other apprentices and a strong desire to leap to her paws and shout out her misgivings about Sol, all at once.

At last Sol, perhaps noting her discomfort, claims he’s run out of stories.

“Please, just one more?” Blossompaw appeals.

Sol demurs. “I was wondering, actually, if you had any stories to tell.”

The world slows as all the apprentices’ heads turn towards Dovepaw. Ivypaw can tell what’s going to happen before her sister opens her mouth.

She interrupts urgently, “Dovepaw, I don’t think this is a good idea-”

Dovepaw glares at her. “I can decide for myself, Ivypaw. Okay, Sol, so this really cool thing happened last greenleaf…”

That’s when Ivypaw decided that she was better off spending her time in the shadowy forest with Hawkfrost.

-

Now, lying open-eyed in her nest listening to the conversations still continuing outside despite the pattering of rain, Ivypaw wonders why she was surprised. Dovepaw would do almost anything, these days, if she thought it would annoy Ivypaw. It’s been almost three moons, and the sisters still sleep at opposite ends of the apprentices’ den, are still unable to speak without arguing. She scrunches her eyes shut, determined to be asleep - to be away - before her sister comes to bed and finds Ivypaw here, shut out of the party.

Her eyes have just drifted closed when the shouting begins.

There’s no obvious start to it, but suddenly every cat in ThunderClan seems to be calling over each other, voices strained and shrill with panic. “Someone check the dens!” -“The nursery’s empty. How about the apprentices?” - “I’ve got them all here, I think.” - “Has anyone seen Mousefur and Longtail?” - “Wait, Blossompaw says Ivypaw went to bed early.” - “Ivypaw went - ? Fox dung. Can anyone see Ivypaw?” - “Ivypaw? Ivypaw!” - “We have to leave now. Someone go and wake her up - not you, Briarpaw!” All at once.

Ivypaw’s eyes snap open, her sleep-drugged mind making little sense of the chaos except for the sound of her own name. And the urgency. Uncurling, she stumbles from her nest and out into the cold, blustering night. It’s as dark as Hawkfrost’s forest, all the stars hidden by stormclouds. The rain’s falling more heavily than ever, blown sideways by the wind. The ThunderClan hollow is rapidly emptying, a stream of cats hurrying towards the thorn barrier. It’s as if the camp was under attack, but Ivypaw can’t hear the shrieks of battle, or smell any foreign scents. Just this panicked, inexplicable evacuation.

What under StarClan is going on?

“There she is! Were you the only one in there, Ivypaw?”

Holly’s there, out of all the cats Ivypaw expected, ushering her away from the den to join the others. But before the she-cats can take more than a few steps, Holly stops in her tracks. Ivypaw follows suit. One of the big trees above the hollow is lurching forwards, its branches reaching and groping and tangling and rending.

Instinctively, they scuttle back to the very edge of the hollow, finding an alcove in the rough cliff face.

“It’s gonna fall,” Holly mutters. “Any minute now.”

“Is that why we’re-?”

Holly nods. “Can’t risk crossing the camp now. You stay close to the cliff. I - Longtail’s not out yet.”

“I'm coming with you,” Ivypaw says immediately, because it's the only thing she can say. Longtail’s blind, like Holly’s brother is blind, but slow and frail with age. He's not the sort of cat you leave when a tree’s about to come plummeting down on top of you.

“No, you're not.”

Ivypaw’s objection is cut off by the sound of splitting wood above them: the tree’s roots are tearing free from the rain-loosened soil on the cliff edge, one by one.

Holly swears and sprints across the open ground to the elders’ den, reappearing moments later guiding Longtail. She’s leading him like an expert, helping the elder stay close to the cliff face without tripping on any of the piles of rocks or the new debris of sticks and small branches fallen from the tree, but they still move frighteningly slowly. Ivypaw doesn't know if she should go to meet them, or if Holly's coming to meet her, or if they're all three of them doomed wherever they stand. The tree trunk alone is wider than Ivypaw is long; in between the dark and the thrashing wind it's impossible to tell where it will land. Ivypaw watches the looming shadow of the tree tip, slowly now but soon it will reach a critical point, soon gravity will overtake the force of the tree's remaining roots and drag it swiftly downwards. She’s pressed so far into the tiny alcove that its rough stone edges are digging into both her sides.

“This way, this way!”

The voice isn’t Holly’s, but Ivypaw twists towards it anyway. Sol. That’s who it is. She’d almost forgotten that he was staying in the hollow tonight.

He’s with Holly and Longtail, urging them on. Keeping in the shelter of the cliff although she's not at all sure that it'll protect her, Ivypaw hurries to join them. Maybe Sol’s leading them into a trap, who knows. He's leading them somewhere, and the tree's angle is only growing more precarious.

When she reaches them, the tree has reached an uneasy equilibrium, its branches caught up with the trees across the hollow. Sol and Holly are slowly and carefully helping Longtail climb up a tiny rabbit path leading to the top of the cliff. Holly calls to her, over the wind and the tearing of branches. “Apprentices first. Ivypaw, can you climb past us?”

Wood snaps and splits; the branches holding the tree in place aren't going to withstand very long. Ivypaw scrambles past the others, too afraid of the falling tree to register that she’s at the very edge of the path.

Another crash, and this time Ivypaw sees the falling branch. It drops past her, a black shadow.

Holly cries out.

The black she-cat is teetering, caught off balance. Sol darts to help her, but the path is too narrow. Wood splits and snaps above their heads. Ivypaw looks away, but she’s too late not to see the flash of white fur as Sol loses his balance and falls, landing awkwardly on the floor of the hollow.

The last branch breaks, the last root pulls away. Sol tries to move, but one of his legs is injured. Maybe more than his leg.

Ivypaw can’t believe that this is really happening.

The tree crashes down into the hollow.


	9. Chapter Seven

“Is she going to be okay?”  
  
“She’s just resting.”  
  
“Resting  _while knocked out_.”  
  
“She’ll be fine, Jay. She only has the one shoulder wound - I think she’s suffering from the shock more than anything.”  
  
-  
  
There’s a hollow on the moor, a little scooped-out valley with jagged gritstone walls that no cat likes to go near, not in the most prey-starved days of the drought. Even Crowfeather, who normally ignores the travelling rogues’ superstition, has kept Holly, Jay and Lion away from it since they were kits.  
  
It’s haunted, cats say. Once upon a time, the hollow was just another stretch of the moor; cats and prey ran across it every day, unaware that beneath it wasn’t solid peat or clay or rock, but empty space, a yawning hole that grew until the fragile crust of mud and grass roots above it became unstable and collapsed violently inward. A she-cat was walking across it when it fell, cats say, and they were never able to find her body under all that earth. No body means no burial, and no burial means that the she-cat’s spirit is doomed to wander the land where she died, all the way to the end of the world.   
  
Crowfeather, haunted by his own dead she-cat, discourages them from talking about the hollow, and Jay just scoffs, “That's not how spirits work.” Nevertheless, the tragedy twines itself into Holly’s and Lion's imaginations. Privately, Holly wonders who the she-cat was, what she'd been doing the day the earth collapsed beneath her, whether she had kits who were left behind. Together, both of them wonder whether the rest of the story is true, whether if they were to visit the hollow at the dead of night, the she-cat will come to greet them.   
  
It's the first moon of the drought. The idea of leaving has been raised among the littermates, but it still feels more like a dream than anything else. Meanwhile, Holly and Lion are restless, in need of entertainment. They decide on a night: the new moon, because it seems the most likely time for ghosts to manifest, and because it'll make it harder for Crowfeather at least to follow them. Creeping across the moor, Holly, with her night-black pelt, jumps out at Lion from behind every bush they pass, their shouts carrying on the still night air like in any other game. It's only once they reach the hollow that things start to go wrong.   
  
Holly can no longer remember if they saw the she-cat, or if the spirit is able to wreak her vengeance while still invisible. Maybe Holly  _is_  the she-cat, now. Earth is raining down on her, lumps of clay and grass and even rock, filling up the space around her and blocking her escape. Trapping her in the dark. The space she has left is smaller and smaller; she digs, furiously and desperately, with all of her legs and with her head and with her mouth, whatever she can manage. Lion is calling from somewhere, and maybe Jay too, but their voices are growing quieter, sealed behind a curtain of earth. She kicks, and finally the soil and rocks give way, but they don’t reveal the glimmer of starlight that she expects, just more dark, the start of a tunnel.   
  
The way behind her is barred; she can only go on, further underground.   
  
-  
  
Holly awakes.   
  
As her dream fades, reality rushes back: coming to ThunderClan, the prophecy, the tree. Not that that last one’s very clear, and Cinderpelt says she doesn't expect it to be. Holly’s vague memories of hustling Ivypaw and Longtail from their dens stop long before the tree actually fell. According to Cinderpelt, who’s taking Longtail’s word for it, she helped the others up a path that nobody knew existed, took a shoulder injury as the tree fell, then staggered up the rest of the path only to faint as soon as they reached safety. It seems all too improbable, a life lived by a different cat entirely.  
  
“So I think it's very likely that you were in shock,” Cinderpelt summarises. “You've been asleep all morning. I didn't want to wake you.”  
  
Hurried footsteps sound outside, and Jay and Lion burst in.  
  
“Next time,” Jay says, “you could try telling me before you run into the path of a falling tree.”  
  
Holly smiles. “I’m glad you got out safely as well, Jay.”  
  
“What he means is, he was sat by your nest all morning, waiting for you to wake up,” Lion adds.  
  
For Jay, that’s touching in the extreme; Holly feels a stab of guilt at having worried her brothers.  
  
"When Ivypaw came running, we thought-”  
  
“It’s fine, I’m all patched up.” Holly jumps up to show them, wincing at the pain in her shoulder. She sits down again, carefully. “Mostly patched up. Hey, Lion, do you remember the time we went to find that ghost?”  
  
“You two actually went ahead with that?” Jay asks.   
  
“It was a complete waste of time, “ Lion says dismissively. “Nothing showed up. Why do you ask, Holly?”  
  
“No reason. I think I dreamt about it.”  
  
“You're traumatised by how scary it was?” Lion teases.   
  
“Ha.”  
  
“I told you spirits don't work like that, “ Jay says. “Crowfeather told you spirits don't work like that. But you still decided to go risking your necks on a cliff edge after dark.”  
  
Holly shrugs. “Pretty much.”   
  
The mention of Crowfeather has sobered her a little, though. It's been a while since she last thought about her father, and now the memory of when she last saw him, his lost expression and his slow, purposeful walk back to moor, is vivid in her mind.   
  
What if she'd not survived the night before? What if she'd never seen him again?   
  
Lion’s staring at his paws. “We've come a long way since then, haven't we?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
-  
  
The day wears on. After Jay and Lion leave, Cinderpelt asks Holly to sort out some herbs, and then to help prepare a simple dressing for Longtail. Unlike Jay, who seems to soak up this sort of knowledge, Holly has no interest in medicine, and no particular skill in remembering the names or uses of the herbs. Her shoulder nags at her, a constant reminder of the previous night.   
  
Eventually, she cracks and asks Cinderpelt if she's allowed to leave.  
  
Cinderpelt smiles, and sighs. “You remind me of Squirrelflight when she was young. Fine. Keep your weight off that shoulder, and you'll be alright.”  
  
As Holly limps from the den, she shouts after her, “Stay in camp, mind!”  
  
Not that staying in camp is much less exertion than walking in the woods. Blinking in the midday sunlight, bright after the dimness of Cinderpelt’s cave, Holly is shocked by the devastation that the tree has caused. Twigs and dry leaves are everywhere, the normally smooth floor of the hollow made dangerous with scattered splinters. Larger branches, still attached to the trunk or torn loose, block most of the routes around camp that Holly’s accustomed to. And then there’s the tree itself - the huge, heavy trunk lying right across the hollow, its web of roots encircling the apprentices’ den, its broadest part planted where the elders den must’ve been, its branches reaching towards the path Holly escaped up last night. She shivers, just looking at it.  
  
Cats swarm over and among this chaos - a breathless Poppyfrost informs Holly that all but the essential patrols have been cancelled, to free up as many cats as possible for clearing up the camp. “You didn’t take too much damage, then?” the queen adds, not unkindly. “You were so brave, going back like that! Longtail and Ivypaw might have-”  
  
“I did what needed to be done,” Holly says, before Poppyfrost can finish reminding her of exactly what might have happened to Longtail and Ivypaw. She’s no hero and doesn’t intend to be; it’s her brothers who have that power. But Poppyfrost is looking at her in admiration.  
  
“Helping them out all on your own like that! How did you find that path?”  
  
Holly says slowly, “I don’t- No. I don’t think I was on my own.” There was someone else - but who? She wrenches her thoughts away from long-dead she-cats.  
  
Poppyfrost asks, “How do you mean?”  
  
If only Holly herself knew. “Never mind. I’m all over the place today. Cinderpelt says that's to be expected.”  
  
“Of course,” Poppyfrost says hastily. “You poor thing!”  
  
Berrynose calls Poppyfrost over then, putting a merciful end to the conversation. Holly stands there, alone, for a few minutes more. Maybe she should’ve stayed with Cinderpelt after all; a few steps outside the medicine den, and reality is already fragmenting. What did Cinderpelt tell her about the effects of shock?  
  
She walks over to the fallen tree trunk, bending her head as if to pick up the debris lying beside it. The bark presses against her side, tough and ridged. Holly saw it fall. This much happened.  
  
“Do you need help with that?” someone asks.  
  
Holly jumps back, jolting her shoulder. Letting out a hiss of pain, she turns to look at whoever startled her.  
  
It’s Ivypaw.  
  
Holly didn’t expect that, somehow. The last thing she remembers of the tabby apprentice, they were standing together under the shadow of the tree, wood tearing above them. She assumed that Ivypaw would want to put the same distance between herself and that building terror as Holly does.  
  
“No, I’m fine,” she says, stooping again to sweep the twigs at her feet into a neat pile. Ivypaw joins her anyway. Holly asks, “How about you? Are you alright?”  
  
“More alright than you, apparently,” Ivypaw says. “That shoulder sounds painful. How about you keep sweeping, and I’ll start carrying it away? Dustpelt’s looking for twigs to start patching the dens with.”  
  
“Did Dustpelt ask you to help me?” Holly asks suspiciously. Ivypaw has always struck her as quite like Jay. Neither of them like following other cats’ orders, and neither of them are nice. Added to the fact that Ivypaw usually avoids warriors like a plague, this is a sure sign that something isn't right. “What do you want?”  
  
Ivypaw’s silent, slowly gathering together a mouthful of twigs.   
  
“You want me to pass on another message for you?” Holly guesses. “Or you want me to do something?”  
  
“Neither,” Ivypaw says. “I just wanted to ask - You must remember, even if no-one else does-”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
The words rush out. “Holly, do you remember a cat called Sol?”


	10. Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some answers? Maybe?
> 
> (29/8/18 - Whitewing's name has been fixed, whoops)

The tree crashes down into the hollow.  
  
Ivypaw sees it fall, as best as she can in the thickening darkness. Yet more stormclouds have appeared, blocking out every star in the sky. She sees the shadowy dark shape plummet downwards, along with other dark shadows that must be its branches. She sees the cloud of dry, shrivelled leaves, shaken loose and tossed in the storm winds. What she doesn’t see is Sol, not in all that chaos, not even the merest flash of one of his white patches. There’s no way to tell where he is,  _if_  he is.  
  
She hears the shout, though. Anguished and cut off. It echoes through her head long after it stops echoing through the deserted hollow.  
  
She doesn’t know how she manages to climb the remainder of the narrow path. She remembers shouting down to Holly and Longtail, checking if they’re both okay. Okay being a relative concept in this case. Ivypaw’s not wounded - she thinks - but all of her legs are shaking, and her breath is coming in jagged gasps as if she’s run to the lake and back. She proceeds grimly, one trembling paw in front of the other, and somehow she must reach the top. Longtail joins her soon after; Holly follows, staggering the last few steps to safety before she collapses, a heap of dark fur on the carpet of ghost-grey fallen leaves.  
  
Ivypaw rushes to her side, gingerly touching her face to the other she-cat’s chest. Still breathing, thank StarClan. Blood trickles sluggishly from a gash on her shoulder.   
  
“I’ll stay with her,” Longtail says, coming up behind her. Ivypaw starts; this is almost the first thing the elder has said since this nightmare started. “Go - she needs Cinderpelt!”  
  
Her Clanmates are still gathered by the camp entrance. Ivypaw’s barely delivered her message before Whitewing’s there, running towards her daughter. And then Birchfall, and Brightheart, and even Dovepaw. Someone shouts, “Ivypaw!” and someone else shouts, “She's safe!” Ivypaw’s legs are steady again, she's embracing both her parents, relief is rushing through her. She's safe.   
  
Cinderpelt vanishes to tend to Holly, Lion and Jay close behind her. Too late, Ivypaw remembers that there's another cat that needs medical attention, still trapped there in the hollow.   
  
She breaks away from her parents. “Sol’s still in the hollow! You have to help him!”  
  
They're silent.   
  
Whitewing says, “Who?”  
  
-  
  
It’s the same when Ivypaw tries asking Brightheart, and Blossompaw. _Who’s Sol? What rogue?_ Just a few hours ago, before the tree fell, the Clan were buzzing around Sol like moths to a Twoleg light, and now none of them even seem to recognise his name. Except Ivypaw. She knows that she saw him; she knows that without his guidance, she and Holly and Longtail would never have escaped the hollow. But reality no longer seems to match up to what Ivypaw knows.  
  
She can’t doubt her recollection, no matter how much Cinderpelt tells her about the effects of shock, and about how cats sometimes twist their own memories so the world will make sense around them. If Ivypaw’s in shock, it’s because a cat got hurt - probably died - right in front of her, and now nobody will admit he existed. And if Ivypaw was trying to force the world to make sense, surely she’d be forgetting Sol along with everyone else, not stubbornly trying to cling on to her memories of him.  
  
She half wonders if there’s some conspiracy of silence that everyone forgot to tell her about, like over Leafpool and Crowfeather. But who are ThunderClan trying to hide their encounter with Sol from? Themselves?  
  
The tortoiseshell tom hasn’t yet managed to leave the hollow under his own power, and every heartbeat reduces the possibility of him doing so.  
  
Firestar orders the whole Clan to sleep outside of camp for the rest of the night, on the relatively open ground at the low end of the hollow, in case any other trees are about to fall. Squirming in her wet, uncomfortable nest of half-rotten leaves, Ivypaw tries her hardest to fall asleep, to meet with Hawkfrost like she wanted earlier, but her mind and body remain firmly in the here and now, her heart too fast and her breath too heavy for her to fall asleep. Before her eyes have even begun to close, it’s dawn, and Firestar’s calling them back together to survey the damage.  
  
Even in the pale, pink-tinged light, and the long dawn shadows, it’s bad. Firestar, normally a master at optimistic speeches, struggles to put a positive spin on it.  
  
“Repairing everything that we’ve lost will take time, there’s no two ways about it. This is a setback. But if I’ve ever known a group of cats who are able to take a setback and turn it into a triumph, it’s the cats standing in front of me!”  
  
“And hey,” Greystripe adds from beside him. “Nobody died.”  
  
Ivypaw stares at the ground.  
  
She’s one of the first cats to re-enter the hollow, even though Whitewing and Birchfall try to stop her. She heads straight for where Sol was. Everywhere is eerily silent, all the usual scurries of life scared away by the impact of the tree. There’s no sign of a body, no pathetic bundle of tortoiseshell fur… Or not that Ivypaw can see. The tree trunk is so thick, it could probably cover a body completely - and it’s not very far away from the path Sol led them up last night. She walks up to it, her nostrils flared and mouth open, alert for the slightest sign of him, the tiniest hint that he is or was here.  
  
Her parents finally notice what she’s doing, and come to stop her. She’s only slightly resentful that it’s taken her almost being crushed for them to finally pay her as much attention as they pay Dovepaw. Mostly, she just feels guilty - because all she wants is to be left alone.  
  
Nobody understands; nobody can understand. All their memories of the night before are clear and ordered, lacking any traces of a cat who might be inconvenient to remember. They all have their ideas of how to take care of her, the supposedly trauma-struck apprentice, but none of them consider that Ivypaw’s divergent memories might be true. None of them even consider that somewhere, a cat might be hurt or dead, a cat who, despite his strangeness, is probably the reason Ivypaw’s still able to stand here, remembering that he existed.  
  
She doesn’t want to be coddled. She wants to know what happened to Sol.  
  
-  
  
Which brings her to now, her conversation with Holly. _Do you remember a cat called Sol?_ For whatever reason, her question had the opposite effect on Holly than it did on almost every other cat Ivypaw’s asked - it’s made Holly take her seriously.  
  
Holly isn’t allowed to leave the camp, so the two she-cats head to the shadowy edge of the hollow, not far from Sol’s path. Ivypaw keeps tasting the air nervously, searching for a hint of Sol’s scent, but the heavy rain last night washed the hollow clean. The rogue has vanished from the physical world, as well as from her Clanmates’ memories.   
  
Holly limps across the short distance, and then sits down heavily. “I’m alright,” she says quickly, indicating her wounded shoulder with her tail. “It’s fine if I don’t move it.” She isn’t nearly as scary as she’s seemed on their previous encounters. Her fur ungroomed, her green eyes haunted, she seems much more on Ivypaw’s level for once, in the worst possible way.  
  
“So,” Ivypaw says, unsure where to begin. Holly’s told her the bare bones of the thing - she doesn’t remember the previous night all too well, but does recall a cat helping her and Holly and Longtail. A cat who, if Ivypaw’s memories are correct, can only be Sol.  
  
It’s not much, but Ivypaw’s heart is leaping anyway.  
  
“So,” Holly agrees. “You’re the only one who can remember this Sol. Do you know why?”  
  
Ivypaw shrugs. “StarClan having a laugh, I guess. That bit’s not important.”  
  
“Not important?” Holly asks. “There must be a reason.”  
  
_Yeah_ , Ivypaw thinks,  _I’m part of some mysterious prophecy about having the power of the stars in my paws_. But she knows better than to say it out loud, and anyway, she knows it’s not true. Dovepaw’d be ecstatic, though.   
  
She shrugs again. “Whatever it is, I don’t care. Did you see that tree fall on him or not?”  
  
“The tree fell on him?” Holly’s eyes are wide. “But - Cinderpelt said nobody died.”  
  
“And Cinderpelt doesn’t remember Sol!” Ivypaw all but shouts. “That’s why I’m worried, okay? That’s what’s important.”  
  
She thought Holly remembered Sol; she thought she wasn’t alone.  
  
“Calm down,” Holly says, like she’s trying not to be patronising. “Look, I believe you. I just - you’ll have to fill me in as we go along, alright?”  
  
Ivypaw sighs. “Alright. So, you remember getting me and Longtail out -” She stops. “Wait - as we go along?”  
  
“You told me a cat got killed,” Holly says.  
  
“Well, not necessarily - I mean, I haven’t -”  
  
“A cat got hurt, then. Probably. And none of it’s making any sense, again. Is this what ThunderClan’s always like?”  
  
“Only since my sister showed up.”  
  
Holly half smiles. “She’s really not as bad as you make out.”  
  
_Only a walking generator of both magic and smugness_ , Ivypaw thinks. “Can we talk about Sol, please?”  
  
“Sorry,” Holly says. “So, Sol. He can’t still be in the hollow - someone would’ve seen him. He must’ve got out somehow.”  
  
Before Ivypaw’s eyes, the tree topples and falls, over and over again. Sol’s shout echoes in her ears. Could Sol really just’ve escaped? Holly didn’t see, Holly can’t remember…   
  
“I guess…”  
  
“So,” Holly says, her green eyes alight again. “What we need to do is find him.”


	11. Chapter Nine

Holly quizzes Ivypaw about the events of the night before. It's frustrating - Holly recalls nothing of Sol’s ‘visit’, just like the other cats Ivypaw says she’s talked to, and none of the details around the tree’s fall, no matter how hard she tries. All she really remembers is this - a sure, silky voice that can only be Sol's.  _This way, it's safe here._  A voice that Holly would follow anywhere, and apparently did.  
  
“This where we were last night?” she clarifies.  
  
Ivypaw nods.  
  
Holly looks around her. They’re stood close to one end of the fallen tree, in the shadows below where the cliff is highest. Thanks to last night’s rain, now a light drizzle, the sandy ground holds no pawsteps other than their own, current ones. The same rain has washed away all traces of cat scent from the hollow - those that aren’t already masked by the foetid, rotting smells of late leaf-fall.  
  
She remembers one night like this, back on the moor, when a fox got almost to the entrance of their den without even Jay sensing it, and vanished into the fog without a trace. It’s impossible to track anything in this weather.  
  
“Let’s start from what we know,” she says, trying to sound confident regardless. “Sol escaped from the hollow. He might’ve been wounded, but he didn’t want to see Cinderpelt, otherwise he’d have stuck around. So where did he go?”  
  
“Um…”  
  
Holly’s beginning to resent being shoved into - whatever this is. Specifically, being shoved into it along with only a recalcerent apprentice.   
  
“You said you talked to him. Did he say anything about his plans?”  
  
Ivypaw sniffs. “Dovepaw talked to him. I was just there, as usual. I don’t know… He told us a lot about where he’d been. Mostly places I have no idea how to get to. Why are we wasting time talking about this? Can’t we just track him?”  
  
“If you’re a much better tracker than I am, then yeah, sure. Go ahead.”  
  
Ivypaw’s silent.  
  
“What-?” Holly asks, then stutters to a halt as she realises where Ivypaw’s thoughts are probably leading. “Well, we do know one cat who’s able to track him.”  
  
“No. We are not getting Dovepaw’s stupid prophecy involved in this.”  
  
“It’s this, or I ask you more questions. Or we give up.”  
  
Ivypaw glares at her, and Holly knows she’s won.  
  
-  
  
However, it’s not Dovepaw that Holly first goes to find, but Jay.  
  
There are two reasons for this, the first being that Ivypaw refuses point blank to go and talk to Dovepaw herself. Holly gives in easily; after all, she’s the one who wants Dovepaw involved. She gets where Ivypaw’s coming from, but it makes everything more complicated. Holly barely knows Dovepaw, suspects the apprentice isn't aware Holly knows about her powers, and has no idea how she’ll react to Holly’s request. So any backup, especially backup as stubborn as Jay, is welcome.  
  
The second reason is that Jay is part of the prophecy, and Holly is not.  
  
When Holly leaves Ivypaw and returns to the main clearing, Lion’s out on patrol, but Jay's there, talking angrily to Brambleclaw. Holly can guess why. Cinderpelt was saying earlier that other trees and debris fell in the woods last night, and patrols are still making sure that the old hunting trails were safe. It’s understandable that well meaning ThunderClan cats would try to keep Jay out of it - and equally obvious, to Holly at least, that Jay would protest this to the point of idiocity. She sighs, and goes to intervene.  
  
“Jay,” she begins, cutting into the ever more heated conversation. “I need to ask you something.”  
  
“Can’t it wait - Fine.” He must’ve heard the urgency in her voice - or read her mind, or whatever - because he follows her away after only one more snark at Brambleclaw. They walk back towards the quieter part of the hollow, and then Jay says, “This had better be good. And not about Lion.”  
  
“Lion?”  
  
“He’s being stupid. It doesn’t matter.”  
  
So they’ve argued. It’s not like that never happens - on the moor, with only the four of them for days on end, sparks often ended up flying, not just between Holly and Crowfeather. But it’s probably the first real argument since the littermates arrived in ThunderClan. She wonders what it’s about. Lion would never make the mistake of forbidding Jay from the forest, and they seemed fine this morning…   
  
“So what is it?” Jay asks abruptly.  
  
She gives up. “You know last night, when the tree fall?”   
  
She explains all of it, as well as she can.  
  
“That is good.” He pauses, thinking. “I can’t remember him either. It’s unlikely that you and Ivypaw dreamt up the same cat, and there’s no herb…”  
  
“Thanks, Medicine Cat.”  
  
“I could try looking inside your memories, if you want.”  
  
Instinctively, she shakes her head. “Let’s save that for when we need it.”  
  
“Something’s going on,” Jay mutters.  
  
“You think?”  
  
“Something bigger than just one cat.” He straightens up, the intensity fading from his clouded eyes. “Let’s go get Dovepaw. If we can track down this Sol, maybe he’ll give us some proper information.”  
  
The apprentice is helping with the clearing up. It takes some persuading to get her to leave - Dovepaw refuses to believe that Ivypaw wants her help. Probably they shouldn’t have mentioned Ivypaw at all, but Holly’s only inferred the bare bones of what happened between the sisters. She can’t imagine being that estranged from Lion or Jay. When they do rejoin Ivypaw, the two apprentices glare at each other for a good minute, before settling into some kind of uneasy truce.  
  
They fill Dovepaw in together - beginning with the fact that Jay and Lion are part of the prophecy, since Holly let it slip and neither Jay, Lion nor Ivypaw bothered to tell her earlier. “We thought she’d tell Firestar,” Jay says as an excuse, which Holly snorts at. She still doesn’t understand her brothers’ distrust of Firestar; he’s their kin, and their leader, and he seems to know more about the prophecy than anyone. If Holly was part of it, she’d have talked to him long ago, and be busy working out what the prophecy’s  _for_.  
  
Dovepaw’s quiet, soaking in each piece of new information. She asks what Jay’s power is, and is much more awed and much less disturbed than Holly was. “So you can tell what I’m thinking, like, right now?”  
  
“Yes. You think I'm lying.”  
  
She subsides. Ivypaw explains about Sol, her voice fading away again as she reaches the point when the tree fell. Holly has to continue for her. It hits her, possibly for the first time, that Ivypaw witnessed Sol’s possible death in a way that she didn’t, or can’t remember. And that the mysterious tom isn’t just a puzzle or a half-forgotten itch of memory. He’s real, maybe hurt, maybe in danger, and they’re the only cats who know, and they’re stood here talking without even knowing if time is running out.  
  
“So can you look for him?” she asks. “Ivypaw can tell you what he looks like again, if you need.”  
  
Dovepaw nods. Watching her, Ivypaw’s expression is unreadable.  
  
“I’ll sweep the territory,” Dovepaw says more confidently. “I mean - that’s how Firestar puts it.”  
  
“We understand,” Jay cuts in. “How long will that take?”  
  
“A few minutes? I’ve been practicing.”  
  
He whistles under his breath. “Can you do that now?"  
  
“Yes.” Dovepaw doesn’t say anything else for what feels like a long time. A hush falls over the other three as they wait. Fascinated, Holly watches the young she-cat as if she could see her power working, although just like when Jay says he uses his powers, nothing outwardly happens. Maybe Dovepaw’s blue gaze is a little too distant, her features a little too still, but you wouldn’t possibly notice unless you were looking very closely.  
  
She’s so concentrated on her task. What’s it like, to be that young and to have a power nobody else understands?  
  
Dovepaw’s expression shifts, to one of excitement. “I found someone! Looks like a tom, and I don’t know his scent.”  
  
“Good,” Jay says. Ivypaw mutters “Yay”, too quiet for Holly to tell if she’s being sarcastic.  
  
“Tortoiseshell fur, is that right? He’s at the entrance to somewhere dark, near WindClan - oh, I know!” The realisation seems to jolt her back to where the others are, and her face crumples. “Mouse dung! Lost him!”  
  
“Can’t you look back?” Holly asks. “Quick, before he goes.”  
  
“I’m not sure exactly where it is, I’d have to check the whole area…”  
  
“Do it,” Jay says.  
  
Dovepaw’s already still and remote again, and even Ivypaw’s watching her now, all of them barely breathing.   
“No, no, no… He must’ve gone in. I can never sense in - in there.”  
  
Holly exhales. “Never mind. We have a clue, right? At least we know he escaped the tree.”  
  
Jay nods. “Thanks, Dovepaw.”  
  
She smiles shyly. “No-”  
  
“So are you going to lead us to him or what?” Ivypaw butts in.  
  
Startled, Holly considers. It can't be that long after sunhigh, but with the short late leaf-fall days, the sun is already setting, painting the rocky walls of the hollow with pink and orange light. By the time they can make it to the WindClan border, it'll be fully dark. The thickening drizzle threatens another storm, Holly's not even supposed to be out of camp, they don't know if any of the trails are safe. There's no way anyone would let them go without suspecting something’s wrong. Holly’s urgency wars with her sense of practicality.   
  
“Not now,” she says eventually. “We'll go at dawn.”  
  
“But-”  
  
“He can wait until tomorrow, now we know he's okay. The cat you saw didn't look injured, did he?”  
  
Dovepaw shakes her head.  
  
“Then we don't want to risk getting ourselves injured.” She doesn't want to risk getting two apprentices injured, or Jay. “Alright, Ivypaw? Get some rest. Meet you all outside camp at dawn.”


	12. Chapter Ten

"Here it is," Hawkfrost says, gesturing with a flourish of his stripy tail. "The river."

Ivypaw stares. She was surprised when Hawkfrost led her into the forest tonight - in the two moons they've trained together, they’ve always stayed in the same clearing. Not that the rest of the forest was much of a change. Everywhere she looked, there’s the same drifts of rotting leaves, the same softly glowing fungi, the same twisted branches the interlace far above the forest floor, blocking out the sky. It could be a different clearing they’ve met in every night, and Ivypaw wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. They must have travelled at least the distance from the ThunderClan camp to the lake, and the trees showed no sign of ending, or even changing in type or density.

And now without warning she's staring at a river. It’s unlike any body of water Ivypaw’s seen while awake - just like the fungi, or the strange, soft tree bark. Dark and slow-moving, it looks more like mud than water. Noxious, oily mud, like you might find by the side of a Thunderpath when there’s been a flood. The stench that rises from the river is foul enough that Ivypaw chokes on it from several fox-lengths away. It flows through the trees without making any break between them; when Ivypaw gazes upwards, she still sees the same tangle of branches. No stars.

“Look closely,” Hawkfrost says. “If you get lost in this forest, your best bet is to walk until you find the river. There’s only the one, and every direction leads here eventually.”

This prompts a whole host of questions, none of which Ivypaw feels confident enough to voice. She studies the river obediently, trying to remember every disgusting detail.

“Hawkfrost,” says a voice from behind them.

Ivypaw spins around. The speaker is a she-cat, with thick, tortoiseshell-and-white pelt and a broad, scarred muzzle, which is currently wearing an unpleasant sneer. Eerily, the faintest outline of the forest is visible through her pelt. Ivypaw shifts away instinctively, closer to Hawkfrost.

“Mapleshade.” Hawkfrost’s voice is calm and firm, a contrast to Mapleshade’s animosity. He whispers to Ivypaw, “Don’t mind her. She’s been here a long time; her bark’s worse than her bite.”

“You never told me there were other cats here,” Ivypaw hisses back.

“You never asked,” he replies. “You’re not scared, are you?”

“Of course not!”

Mapleshade insists on joining them, despite Hawkfrost’s (and Ivypaw’s) unwillingness. They wade across the river, Ivypaw trying to close her nostrils to its stench. The water clings to her pelt, tinting her pale fur grey. She’s glad that it’s only bruises and muscle memory that her body brings back from the dark forest - explaining this smell to the other apprentices would be challenging, to say the least. Once they’ve crossed, Hawkfrost leads them along the bank for a short while. Upstream - although the forest still doesn’t noticeably change, the river becomes narrower, deeper and faster flowing, the waters licking at the banks as if they want to reach out and pull Ivypaw in.

Mapleshade watches her looking, her eyes amber slits.

They reach the clearing before Ivypaw begins to look for it. In it is a tall rock, oddly jutting from the gentle forest slopes, and a tom who Ivypaw’s brain tells her she shouldn’t recognise. Not here.

“Tigerheart?”

-

“You’re Dovepaw’s sister, aren’t you?” Tigerheart asks her. They’re paired up, sparring under Mapleshade’s supervision while Hawkfrost works on some of his ‘important business’. Tigerheart returns Ivypaw’s blow before continuing: “She told me a bit about you - when we went on that trip last greenleaf. I wouldn’t have guessed you’d turn up here.”

“Small world, huh?” Truth be told, she wouldn’t have guessed Tigerheart would turn up here. Anyone willing to endure a trip with Dovepaw ought to be way too annoying for Hawkfrost’s tastes. She lunges forward in her turn, managing to graze Tigerheart’s flank before he bats her away.

“I guess. I didn’t think you were the type.”

Ivypaw stops still. “What do you mean?” she asks.

“Just-”

Mapleshade stalks forward, her translucent white tail swishing. “Having trouble, you two?”

They shake their heads, almost in unison.

Her eyes narrow. “Then why aren’t you fighting? Next time, talk to me, not each other - I’m always willing to give some extra tuition.”

Training with Mapleshade… Ivypaw’s only known the spectral she-cat for one night, and she already knows she doesn’t want that to happen. She attacks again, this time ignoring Tigerheart’s attempts at conversation. Not that that’s hard, since every question involves Dovepaw in some way; the universe seems to be going all out today to remind her of her sister.

It’s time Ivypaw reminded the universe just how wrong it is.

-

She wakes in the grey light before dawn.

The apprentices’ den is quiet, the other four still asleep. When she uncurls from her nest and pads to the exit, Blossompaw mumbles something and Ivypaw freezes, but the other apprentice merely rolls over, subsiding back into silence. Relaxing, Ivypaw squeezes out of the den and into the shadowy hollow.

For once, she’s not sorry that Hawkfrost dismissed her early. Holly wants to set out to look for Sol at dawn, and by then Ivypaw wants to be long gone.

She’s lucky sneaking out of camp. Hazeltail’s on guard, and she easily accepts Ivypaw’s excuse of needing to get some air. “Bring back some prey, if you can!”

Ivypaw’s gone almost too fast to answer her.

It’s not Holly’s fault, exactly, any of this. Ivypaw’s honestly grateful to the black she-cat for believing her about Sol, for trying to help. The problem is the help she was able to offer - one look at the situation, and Holly went straight to Dovepaw. It’s like nobody can do anything anymore without a prophecy. The forest is just stirring, a few flickers in the corner of her vision indicating the movements of small creatures. Everything coming back to life after the rain. She runs past it all, barely registering it - prey isn’t important right now. Sol is. She needs to make sure he’s okay, and now Dovepaw’s power suggests he might be, she needs to know why.

She reaches the tunnel entrance in record time.

The stretch of scrubby grass is nothing special, but it still evokes bittersweet memories for Ivypaw. Four moons ago, now, this was the scene of her and Dovepaw’s biggest adventure. They’d somehow managed to escape Whitewing’s watchful eye - this was back when the littermates were still everything to each other, back when leaving camp alone was the worst of Ivypaw’s misbehaviour - and thanks to Dovepaw’s senses, avoided the patrols almost to the WindClan border, all to check out the one place where Dovepaw’s powers couldn’t reach.

Birchfall and Brightheart found them coming out of a different tunnel exit, half a dark, anxious afternoon later. Ivypaw and Dovepaw let them believe that they’d just wandered in, despite the lack of a scent trail, rather than travelling through the tunnels. They were lucky not to get worse lost, Ivypaw knows now. Still, that misadventure had one good consequence - as soon as Dovepaw told her that she couldn’t sense where Sol was, she knew that this was the place.

The entrance itself is small and inauspicious, like a fox hole or somewhere there’d been a rockfall, long ago. She approaches it more cautiously than she did four moons ago. The ground is lumpy with small pebbles and stones, and the grass doesn’t seem to grow as well here as it does on the rest of the moor - or maybe that’s just Ivypaw’s imagination. The thin seam of dark air inside the tunnel seems to smother her, to choke away more of her senses than just sight. She wonders if this claustrophobia is what’s blocking Dovepaw.

No sign of Sol. She’ll head to the first fork in the path, then consider her options.

She wonders why Dovepaw didn’t confess right away that Sol was inside the tunnels. Maybe her squeaky clean sister is hiding something - or more likely, Firestar told her to keep quiet about any weaknesses in her power. Too bad Firestar didn’t reckon on the one cat who already knew everything about Dovepaw’s power, before the beavers ever showed up.

The air here is still and musty, a trapped remnant from a long ago season. She strains her eyes to see further forward, but only sees the faintest shadowy forms. The tunnel’s so narrow, her body blocks most of the light. So far, the tunnel floor’s been dry, but now there's a scent of damp rising from further down. And maybe - just a hint of cat scent. She presses onwards towards it, her heart pounding despite herself.

But before she’s able to find the source of the scent, the source finds her. Without warning, claws sink into Ivypaw's fur from behind. She tries to spin, to use one of the fighting moves Hawkfrost taught her, but even with her small size the tunnel walls block easy movement, and her assailant shoves her to the cold, rocky floor. The dim light reflects off patches of white fur. Two sets of sawing breaths echo against the tunnel walls.

She claws back, elation rushing through her every time her blows connect. The other cat takes a few seconds to fight back; she uses the respite to scramble to her paws, backing away down the tunnel. Not a great situation to be in - heading blindly further into the depths - but hey, at least she’s still upright.

The cat’s scent is clear now, and even in her fear Ivypaw manages to feel a mix of other emotions - curiosity, relief, smugness that she was right all along.

“How - how are you still alive?” she manages, still backing. She needs to stop backing. Any moment now, she’ll take one more step and the tunnel floor will vanish from beneath her - but right now, her chances feel better like this than if she stays still.

Sol’s smirk is just visible in the gloom. “Just like you won’t be, you mean? Didn’t your mentor tell you not to wander into caves?”

Ivypaw flinches. “You wouldn’t kill me! You just saved my life.”

“And how did I do that, may I ask?” She can’t read his expression, can’t tell if he’s feigning confusion or if whatever’s affecting ThunderClan has spread to Sol himself, if she’s truly the only one who remembers what happened that night.

She takes another few steps back. No sudden drops - yet. “Two nights ago. The - the tree, I was in the hollow and you told us the way out.”

“Waste of my time, then, wasn’t it?”

“No! No, it wasn’t, I’m really grateful!” What would Hawkfrost tell her to do right now? All she can do is keep talking. “I thought the tree fell on you, so I came to see if you were alright. Because you helped me.”

“Well, that’s a first,” Sol says. “In other circumstances, I might say for your future reference: I do not need help. Neither do I save other cats’ lives, unless there’s something in it for me. You were just along for the ride, and now you’re not.”

Ivypaw swallows. “Look, please. I didn’t mean to upset you or whatever. I’ll leave - I won’t even tell anyone I saw you. Just - please don’t -”

Sol’s only silent for a heartbeat, but it lasts long enough for Ivypaw to imagine the thousands of possibilities spreading out from that moment, the hundreds of ways Sol could hurt her, the hundreds of ways he could let the tunnels hurt her, the hundreds of ways her Clanmates could find her in days or moons or never. She edges further from him. Her heart’s beating so hard she’s sure they can hear it back in ThunderClan.

“Something else for your future reference,” Sol says. “I also don’t kill cats unless there’s something in it for me. And I doubt you’re worth the bother. Yet.”

He turns, his patchwork fur brushing against the confining walls -

\- and disappears.


	13. Chapter Eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's all about to kick off, folks!
> 
> (Also I added a few more tags - the spoiler warning and canon-level violence to reflect the fight last chapter. This is definitely going to keep within a teen rating, I just wanted to make sure I warned for everything that's already in here.)

Holly waits for Ivypaw probably longer than she needs to.   
  
“She went out a while ago,” Hazeltail tells Holly. “Needed a walk, she said. I was going to give her another few minutes, then tell Brightheart. Why, are you taking her out today?”  
  
“I was considering it,” Holly replies.  
  
“Good of you.” Hazeltail smiles ruefully. “She used to be a really nice kit. I guess she’s getting it out of her system at the moment.”  
  
“She’s not that bad,” Holly says, adding, “I’d better go see what I’m doing instead. Do you want me to tell Brightheart?”  
  
Yesterday, Ivypaw was desperate to find Sol - there’s no way that today she’d be so unbothered as to wander off and miss the search party. There’s only two possibilities: either Ivypaw did go out for a few minutes, and something happened to stop her from making it home. Or she was avoiding the search party deliberately.  
  
Holly can’t help but worry that it’s her own fault. She thought delaying the search would keep the others safe…  
  
“Have you seen Ivypaw yet?” she asks Dovepaw a few minutes later, who shakes her head. The apprentice has been sweeping the territory using her power since they first realised that Ivypaw was gone, but to no avail.  
  
Holly hovers at the edge of camp, avoiding the gaze of Greystripe, who’s sorting out the patrols. The dawn sky lightens into the chilly blue of late leaf-fall, far too late for Ivypaw to have lost track of the time.  
  
“Go and train with Firestar,” she tells Dovepaw. “I’ll be - find Jay if you see anything. You said that you saw Sol near the WindClan border, right?”  
  
Dovepaw nods.  
  
“Okay, then. I’ll be back soon.”  
  
-  
  
She tries to pick up Ivypaw’s scent outside the hollow, hopeful that she can follow the apprentice’s trail to wherever she is. But to her dismay, she can only catch traces - near where the patrols often gather, the route to the dirtplace, all places where there’s so much cat scent it’s hard to distinguish any individual one. Then she notices the patch of half-rotten mushrooms, crumpled and scattered as if a small, energetic cat rolled in them. Past that, the traces of Ivypaw’s scent stop.  
  
Holly swears under her breath. Going for a walk, as if.   
  
At least she knows the direction Ivypaw’s probably taken. Near WindClan, Dovepaw said. She meets the border at the lake and tracks methodically along it, making sure to keep herself far enough away from the line of scent marks that she won’t be mistaken for a border patrol. Firestar’s managed to keep her, Jay and Lion away from WindClan so far - she has no idea if Crowfeather’s old Clan even knows they exist, and would rather it stayed that way. The forest is stark, the now-familiar oaks and beeches leafless and swaying restlessly in the chill breeze that’s sprung up. Already, the sky is becoming overcast, as slate grey clouds move in to block out the frail blue. Every glimpse at the risen sun, fighting through the thick cloud cover, reminds her of the time that’s passed since Ivypaw went missing.  
  
When she finally starts seeing pawprints - fresh, apprentice-sized, marking the thickest patches of mud along a purposeful trail towards the high moor - she tries to run, but a stabbing pain in her shoulder where the tree branch hit her forces her to stop. Holly’s anxiety grows and grows, as, thanks to the thinner, thirstier soil near the moor, the pawprints occur at longer and longer intervals and then disappear altogether.   
  
There’s still no sign of Ivypaw herself. With no injuries, she could’ve raced here in half the time it took Holly. Much further, and the apprentice could be out of ThunderClan territory. Much further, and if something’s happened to her, she could be beyond help.  
  
Holly climbs the slope past the border with the unclaimed forest, squints to check the skyline for Ivypaw. Nothing. And then she freezes. There’s a figure, just coming over the horizon in the empty WindClan territory, not too far away. Not Ivypaw - the figure is too tall and has the wrong pelt colour, tortoiseshell patches of orange and black, splashed with white. Its proud stature and the ring of fur standing out around its neck make it look like a LionClan cat, out of the stories Crowfeather told them when they were kits.  
  
But it isn’t. The figure comes closer, and suddenly she recognises it. It’s Sol, the cat who started it all.  
  
She hurries as best as she can towards him. It’s beginning to rain; she feels a droplet of water land on her nose and shakes it off impatiently.   
  
“What do you want?” Sol calls.  
  
“I want to find a ThunderClan apprentice.” Holly replies. “And I want to know what you’re up to. We know you were there when the tree fell.”  
  
“What tree?” he asks, smirking.   
  
Together, they walk through the drizzle back into the forest. Holly keeps a wary eye out for patrols; Sol strides across the hostile territory as if it belongs to him. They must make quite a pair - Holly with her limping gait, and Sol with his lions mane and signal-bright tortoiseshell pelt. The halfClan cat and the rogue.   
  
He refuses to say anything about how he escaped the tree, or even admit that he was in ThunderClan when it fell. “Fine,” she says. “Just tell me if you’ve seen Ivypaw. Young, she-cat, light tabby.”  
  
He shrugs. “Depends if you’ve come to take her off my paws.” When she glares at him, he adds, “Yes, I’ve seen her. Around dawn, going into one of those tunnels. What, isn’t she back yet?”  
  
Holly shakes her head. “There are tunnels here?” She scans the nearby forest curiously; nobody in ThunderClan’s told her about anything of the sort. She thinks of Dovepaw: somewhere dark. “You let her go in on her own?”  
  
“I didn’t let her do anything,” Sol retorts. “Do you think I wanted a kit stalking me?”  
  
“She was worried about you, thanks to your stunt with the tree.”  
  
“Next time, tell her not to bother.”  
  
Holly decides to ignore this, her mind full of Ivypaw’s predicament. “You said she went in around dawn. How long are these tunnels? Where’s the entrance?”  
  
She glances past the dripping, leafless tree branches at the clouded sky. It’s almost mid-morning, and even with the short late leaf-fall days that’s a long time to be underground. Ivypaw must’ve raced up here, unsuccessfully searched the tunnels for Sol - and then what? Stubbornly continued? Got lost? Got  _hurt_?  
  
The rain spatters down - rain which could spill into an underground tunnel, could drown a cat it traps inside - ice cold and already heavy enough to soak Holly’s long fur.  
  
“Why should I tell you?” Sol asks. His dark paws scuff in the fallen leaves and debris of the forest floor, relics of the storm. “I like those tunnels not being overrun with Clan cats.”  
  
“I thought you said you wanted Ivypaw off your paws. If you help me get her out, I’ll make sure she doesn’t bother you.”  
  
He shrugs. “The tunnels can do that.”  
  
Holly feels anger rise inside her. “You’re helping me look for Ivypaw, or you won’t just have her to deal with, you’ll have all of ThunderClan.”  
  
“I can deal with ThunderClan,” he says.   
  
“I’ll explain to all the Clans. You’ll never be able to set foot on Clan territory again.”  
  
“They all hate me already. And yet.” He flicks his tail, indicating himself, his continued presence on ThunderClan territory.  
  
Holly snaps, exasperated, “What’s your deal? Just show me the entrance.”  
  
“My deal,” says Sol, “is that nobody knows my deal.” He pauses, then says, “Let’s be pragmatic, shall we? What’ll you do for me, if I help you find Ivypaw?”  
  
“My silence,” Holly says. “And Ivypaw’s.”  
  
“Accepted,” Sol says, to her surprise. “But I want something more. Your brothers, and Ivypaw’s sister - I want to talk to them. Take them to the tunnel entrance at the new moon, and I’ll help you search for Ivypaw myself.”  
  
“Fine,” Holly says. “Done.”   
  
She doesn’t like Sol’s deal. It’ll involve breaking the rules, betraying the ThunderClan cats who’ve sheltered her - and besides, she’s not sure she trusts Sol around Jay and Lion, let alone Dovepaw. But she supposes she’ll have to deal with those consequences when they happen. If this is how she finds Ivypaw, fixes her own foolishness in letting the apprentice run off in the first place, this is the price she’ll pay.  
  
Sol smiles. “I knew we could reach an agreement, Holly.”  
  
-  
  
They walk for a while longer, following the edge of the forest. The rain patters on, no heavier, but not easing off either. Finally, Sol stops and flicks his tail towards a shallow dip, all scrubby grass and loose rock, just where the forest gives way to the moorland. There’s an opening at one end, black and yawning. A few small paw prints, smudged by the rain, mark the mud just inside - heading in, not coming out.  
  
For a moment, staring at that narrow entrance, Holly can’t breathe. It’s like she’s back in her nightmare, earth and rocks pouring down on top of her. It’s like - just looking at the tunnel entrance, she knows something bad’s happening, has happened, will happen.   
  
Sol’s watching her curiously. “Are you going in or not?”  
  
She tears her gaze away from the darkness to face him. “Of course. But you go first.”  
  
“I wouldn’t say you were in a position to make demands, Holly.”  
  
But he goes anyway, the colours of his tortoiseshell pelt vanishing one at a time - black, then orange, then white. She has no choice, she knows - rescuing Ivypaw is more important than some nightmare, some kithood fear. Steeling her shoulders, Holly squeezes past the rubble at the tunnel entrance and sets off into the dark. Further underground.


	14. Chapter Twelve

Ivypaw needs to get out of here.   
  
She can’t believe it - what just happened, in front of her. One moment Sol’s there, threatening her, and the next the tunnel’s empty and stretching out into darkness. She steps forward, reaching out her forepaws to cover every inch of the uneven tunnel walls where Sol was, searching for the side tunnel he must’ve vanished into, but the stone is cold and solid. There’s no way out of the tunnel, and so there’s no way out of the fact that a cat has just dissolved in right in front of Ivypaw. Just like he did after the tree.   
  
_I don’t think you’re worth the bother_ , Sol said. Even though he’s gone, the words still sting.   
  
Now, Ivypaw's standing at a place where the tunnel widens into a small cave; a crack above her, far too high to scramble up to, lets in faint sunlight and heather scented air. Hopelessly turned round by the chaotic fight with Sol, Ivypaw followed that light and air through the dim, dank tunnels, only to find that her supposed entrance was a false hope.  
  
She cranes her neck to shout upwards, hoping to project her voice through the crack in the roof to the outside world. “Hello, can anyone hear me?”   
  
It must be raining outside - a droplet of water lands on Ivypaw’s flank, a butterfly touch. Her voice echoes round and round the tunnel, but nobody answers her. She shouts again anyway, on and on, until her throat is sore.  
  
Her pelt feels damp - the rain’s getting heavier.  
  
A moment later, she hears it: a roaring sound, like a Twoleg monster speeding past, or like the water foaming down the border stream when Dovepaw and the others dislodged the beavers’ dam. Running water - no, racing water, rising water. It hurtles down the passage towards her, a waterfall starting before her eyes, churning and foaming and sweeping her off her paws almost before she realises what’s happening.   
  
She fights to regain her footing, fails. Her head goes below the water; she swallows half a mouthful of it, gagging on the taste of mud and rot. Her legs kick desperately, her lungs ache with the effort of holding her breath. She can’t see, can’t breathe, can’t -  
  
The water carries her rapidly down the tunnel, bruising her against the rough stone walls. Finally her head breaks the surface of the water. She gasps and gasps again, trying to spit out the water she swallowed. By now the water almost fills the passage; she’s floating a whisker-length from the tunnel roof. She kicks furiously, this time trying to propel herself with the flow of the water, to reach safety before the tunnel fills up completely.  
  
The layer of air becomes smaller and smaller, forcing her to crane her neck to breathe. No sign of a tunnel exit ahead - unless she’s supernaturally lucky, this is it. Sol's won. She’ll never find out what happened the night the tree fell, she’ll never get her revenge.  _You were just along for the ride, and now you’re not_. He’s made good on his threat, disappeared and let the tunnels and the rain keep his secrets for him.  
  
The lapping waters reach the roof, cutting off the air completely, and the current pulls her under.  
  
-  
  
Ivypaw wakes to someone pushing down on her chest, rhythmically and firmly, and water gushing out of her mouth. Not the sort of welcome she imagines StarClan gives you. She blinks open her eyes, waiting for her vision to focus. The light’s dim - still in the tunnels, then, but someone’s found her. Someone with dark fur and worried green eyes. Holly. For the second time in as many days, danger has thrust the two she-cats together.  
  
“Ivypaw!” Holly’s voice is both relieved and urgent. “Can you hear me?”  
  
She’s too busy coughing to speak, but she manages a nod.  
  
“Thank StarClan. Can you get up? We don’t have much time.”  
  
Ivypaw nods again and eases herself to her paws, wincing at the aches all over her body. She coughs again and again, until all that remains of the water she swallowed is its foul taste in her mouth and a small puddle on the already damp stone floor. As she stands there, running her tongue around her mouth to get rid of the taste, she hears Holly say, “She’s awake.”  
  
“I told you I’d rescue her,” someone answers.  
  
Ivypaw squints further into the dimness. They’re in a huge cave, a gallery of tapering stone pillars that rise from the floor or hang from the faraway ceiling, icicles on a gigantic scale. Tunnel entrances dot the walls, which stretch away into darkness. Holly’s moved to hover by a tunnel entrance a few fox-lengths away - and sitting against the wall just beyond her is Sol.  
  
“W-What are you doing here?” Ivypaw demands, her voice croaking but audible. She doesn’t care if she sounds rude, maybe hopes that she does. What right does Sol have to come and gloat over the predicament he left her in?  
  
“Rescuing you,” Sol replies. “You’re welcome, by the way.”  
  
She narrows her eyes. “I thought I wasn’t worth the bother.”  
  
“Oh, Holly made it worthwhile."  
  
Ivypaw transfers her glare to Holly, whose expression is set. “For StarClan’s sake, we don’t have time for this. Sol, what’s the way out?”  
  
Sol waves his tail towards the opening Holly’s stood next to.  
  
The water’s already rising in the lower parts of the cave as they enter the tunnel; the dim light makes it look almost black, reaching for them like the river in Hawkfrost’s forest. They walk in single file - Sol first, since Holly insists, then Ivypaw and then Holly. To keep their minds off the roar of the water behind them, Holly talks to Ivypaw in whispers, explaining how she found Sol while looking for Ivypaw, persuaded him to tell her where Ivypaw was, bribed him to help rescue her.   
  
“What did you say you’d do?” Ivypaw ventures, equally curious and fearful, but Holly just sighs.  
  
“That’s my problem, not yours. I’ll tell you when we get back to ThunderClan, okay?”  
  
“It clearly is my problem,” Ivypaw whispers back. “You can’t do what he wants. Who knows what he’s gonna try next?”  
  
Holly doesn't reply. The three cats are silent for a few minutes as they navigate a particularly steep stretch of the passage, the frictionless limestone made treacherously slippery by their wet paws. With her shorter legs, Ivypaw struggles to keep up with the others; every pawstep she makes, she slides back the same distance. By the time she’s almost up the hungry waters are lapping at the bottom of the slope.  
  
Losing patience, Sol hauls Ivypaw up the last fox-length by the scruff of her neck. They hurry onwards, the water thundering in their ears.  
  
“That’s another thing,” Holly says, once Sol’s far enough ahead again not to hear. They’re all but running down the tunnel now, Holly limping heavily where her shoulder was hurt by the falling branch. “I promised Sol our silence. That means no talking about what happened today. Or with the tree. And for StarClan’s sake, no going after him again.”  
  
“What? No!” Ivypaw says. Her voice echoes, making her jump; she continues more quietly, “That’s not fair. Anyway, you agreed we should go find him yesterday.”  
  
“That was yesterday. I made a deal, alright? Or would you rather I’d left you in here?”  
  
“Stuff that,” Ivypaw hisses. “He can’t control what we do once we’re out of here.”  
  
“Ivypaw, no.” Holly’s whisper sounds genuinely frightened. “You don’t know everything.”  
  
“Then tell me.”  
  
Sol’s voice echoes from further down the passage, startling Ivypaw. “Everything alright back there?”  
  
“Perfectly,” Holly snaps.  
  
“Good,” Sol replies. “Hurry up, then. There's a complication over here.”  
  
They race down the passage. Sol’s waiting just around the first bend in the tunnel. Ahead of him, Ivypaw can hear churning water, see its ominous glint.   
  
“It's risen faster than I expected,” Sol says. “Must be chucking it down up there.”  
  
Holly squeezes past Ivypaw, inspecting the edge of the water. “It doesn't look too deep,” she says. “We could wade? Swim?”  
  
Just at the thought of heading back into the cold, muddy water, Ivypaw’s throat constricts, remembering the terrifying sensation of the water entering her lungs. She looks anxiously from Holly to Sol, who's shaking his head. “Did you learn to swim underwater up on the moor? There's a side tunnel a short way along that might be safe, otherwise we'll have to turn back.”  
  
“But-” Ivypaw begins, remembering the water foaming at their heels as she struggled up the steep slope.   
  
Holly interrupts, already standing ankle deep in the water. “No time to waste, then. Sol, you're first again. Ivypaw, if you keep to this side, there's a bit of a ledge you can walk on.”  
  
The ledge is narrow, forcing her to press close to the chill stone of the tunnel walls. Ivypaw's the only one of them small enough to walk along it - not that it gives her more than a few inches of extra height. They walk close together, almost nose to tail, as fast as they can without losing their balance against the current. Although the water’s calmer than the wave that swept Ivypaw off her feet, it's rising steadily, reaching the top of her paws, her knees, her belly. It smells stagnant, like something decayed.   
  
A jagged opening yawns black on the other side of the passage, just above the water level. All three of them breathe out sighs of relief. Sol clambers inside, while Holly boosts Ivypaw up to follow him. Just too short to pull herself into the entrance, Ivypaw's paws scrabble at the slippery stone for a few seconds before she collapses back into the water.   
  
“Can you help?” Holly calls to Sol as Ivypaw struggles to her paws again, spitting out water. “Sol? You there?”  
  
Sol’s head pokes out of the entrance. “No point.”  
  
“What do you mean, no point?” Holly asks.   
  
He leaps back down into the water. Looking past him into the tunnel, Ivypaw can see the rocks piled up inside. “The whole tunnel’s blocked,” Sol reports. “Those rocks aren't going to move in the time we have.”  
  
Ivypaw feels panic rise in her stomach, colder than the water she's chest deep in. All of this - all the times the three of them have cheated death over the last two days - and the cave’s going to claim them after all. The water churns around them, lapping at Ivypaw’s shoulders. Its stench is all she can smell, all she'll ever smell.   
  
Holly mutters something to Sol, who nods. “Stay close together,” he says, and that's all the warning Ivypaw gets before the tunnel vanishes around them.   
  
-  
  
This is how Sol disappeared, she knows. They’re back in the cave Ivypaw woke up in, at the entrance to the tunnel they took - she recognises the arrangement of the nearby pillars, the small space of flat ground where she was lying. By some trick of the tunnels, this part of the cave isn’t underwater, although the water at the other side of the cave is rising fast to meet them. Sol hustles them down a new tunnel, this one so narrow that his broad shoulders brush against the stone on both sides. Ivypaw follows him, too shaken to think about doing anything else.  
  
“What did you do?” she asks Sol, once they’ve climbed a little way along the passage and the water’s no longer lapping at their heels.   
  
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”  
  
He refuses to say anything else all the while they’re squeezing along the ever narrower tunnel. Ivypaw can’t get an answer out of Holly, either; the older she-cat is suffering badly from her wounded shoulder, hissing in pain every time she scrapes it against the tunnel walls, and not in the mood to talk.   
  
The silence lasts until another recent rockfall blocks their path. Sol swears, and they’re back in the cave.  
  
He leads them down a third tunnel, steep and treacherous. Holly’s shoulder seems to have recovered a bit, but otherwise the journey feels exactly the same as it did last time, darkness and narrow walls and silence other than their weary pawsteps. This time they’re stopped by a torrent of water coursing down the tunnel towards them, too fast flowing to even think about wading through.  
  
Back to the cave. “This one will work, I promise,” Sol says, and leads them splashing through the water at the far end of the cave. Ivypaw’s sceptical - the tunnel Sol’s chosen is already half full of water, an even less likely bet than the ones before it. She trudges along gloomily, wondering if Sol will ever give up and admit that they’re stuck in the tunnels for good.   
  
After StarClan knows how long of wading though the darkness, the tunnel opens out - not into the outside world, as Ivypaw was hoping, but into another wide cave, this one lit by sullen, stormy daylight filtering through a small hole in the roof. The three of them are standing on a rocky ledge at one side of the cave; the rest of the cave is full of water, not rising from tunnel entrances or pooling aimlessly, but flowing steadily from one end of the cave to the other, dark and purposeful. An underground river, in full flood.  
  
There are a few tunnel entrances on the other side of the river, but none that Ivypaw can see a way to without having to swim. She looks over to Sol, hoping that he has an easier route in mind. The rogue’s at the other end of the ledge, dragging what looks like half a tree branch, its bark stripped away.   
  
A quick glance at Holly’s expression reveals that she’s as confused as Ivypaw is.  
  
“Over here,” Sol calls. He’s lugged the branch to the edge of the ridge, like he’s about to heave it into the water. “This will help us keep afloat. While the water’s flowing as fast as this, it should carry us to the lake in no time.”  
  
“Wait,” Holly says. “We’re going in there?”  
  
“This river flows into the lake,” Sol says. “You said you wanted me to guide you. This is guiding. I’m quite happy to leave you here.”  
  
Holly shakes her head, and they all line up behind the branch. It’s just long enough for the three of them to cling on to. This close up, Ivypaw can see scratch marks on its surface, criss-crossing over each other, too many and too regular to be accidental. She struggles to understand the feeling she has looking at them.  
  
Sol counts down, “Three, two, one,” pushing the branch into the water on one. Ivypaw jumps in after it, Holly and Sol on either side of her; after a heartbeat of pure shock when she hits the icy water, she kicks and manages to hold onto the branch, her front claws digging into the soft wood.  
  
The current seizes the branch and drags them all down the river, faster and faster, until at last Ivypaw can see light glimmering at the end of the long channel, a white speck that grows larger until it engulfs them and they’re floating in the middle of the swollen lake, coughing and blinking and spluttering, still clinging to the branch, the rain pouring down and the sun sulking through the thick grey clouds, and there’s colour and sound and the scent of rain and the shore, and Ivypaw is outside and she is alive.  
  
And after all that running through the tunnels, it’s still not quite sunhigh.


	15. Chapter Thirteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some answers?
> 
> Thanks for reading <3 Your comments and kudos are always appreciated!

Holly gasps, spitting out the water she swallowed during the last frantic moments in the underground river. Even with the sky covered by storm clouds, the sunlight is so bright that it blinds her. Sol and Ivypaw have let go of the branch to strike out towards the shore, Sol swimming like a RiverClan cat, Ivypaw more clumsily. Holly stays clinging on, kicking her way to the shore. Growing up on the moor barely prepared her for the idea of this much water, let alone being immersed in it.  
  
Luckily, the underwater mouth of the river delivered them to a part of the lake close to ThunderClan territory - the familiar oaks and beeches rise up from the lakeshore just ahead of Holly, only a few minutes away even with her inexpert swimming. The storm-swollen lake reaches past where the scent marks normally are, lapping around the trunks of the nearby trees.  
  
She pushes the strange branch up past the water and goes to stand with the others under the drooping branches of a willow tree, a flimsy, dripping shelter from the ongoing rain.  
  
Ivypaw turns to Sol, a determined look on her kit-soft face. “I want an explanation.”  
  
“An explanation of what?” Sol asks, calmly shaking droplets of lake water out of his tortoiseshell pelt.  
  
“You know. What you did, bringing us back to that cave.”  
  
Ivypaw’s courage is growing with every moment they’re out of the caves. Holly’s stomach twists with worry for her.  
  
Sol shrugs. “I rescued you, that’s what I did. You’re welcome, by the way.”  
  
“You did a whole lot more-”  
  
Holly interrupts hastily. “Leave it, Ivypaw. There’s no point knowing any more, I already promised we’d keep it quiet.”  
  
“You promised, not me.” Ivypaw turns on Holly, her blue eyes blazing. “I want to know what he’s doing, and why he’s messing with my life. You know what he’s up to, I know it. I saw you in the cave, you were telling him to use his power or whatever.”  
  
“I don’t know any more than you do,” Holly protests. “He used his - his thing on the way to find you, that’s all.”  
  
It was when they encountered the rising water for the first time, after checking the tunnel Ivypaw originally went into and finding it empty. Sol leads Holly further into the tunnels, a labyrinth of rock and earth, but Ivypaw’s still nowhere to be found. And then the water, gushing towards them as the rain outside grows heavier and heavier, cutting off their way out.  
  
“We’ll never rescue Ivypaw like this,” Holly says. “Even if we find her, how are you going to get us out?”  
  
Sol shrugs, unruffled as ever. “Stay close to me.”  
  
A heartbeat later, he and Holly are back at the mouth of the tunnel, and the water - somehow isn’t. Holly almost asks what Sol’s doing, where he gets this power from, but with the weight of the bargain she already made hanging over her, surely it’s best to keep her mouth shut and just get out of here?  
  
“Sure,” Ivypaw says now. “You don’t know. But he does. And he owes us an explanation.”  
  
“He doesn’t owe us anything. He got you out - we owe him.”  
  
“No-”  
  
“Fine,” Sol says. His long fur is sleek again; he settles himself among the willow roots, looking as if he’s done nothing more strenuous all morning than groom himself. “Fine. You may as well know. Go ahead, have a seat.”  
  
Surprised, Holly nods. Glancing at Ivypaw, she sits down with the apprentice among the spreading roots. The dangling willow branches, still with a few shrivelled leaves hanging off them, hide the three cats from view. Add the pervasive scent of the flooded lake and the hiss of the rain, and a ThunderClan patrol would have to come right up to them in order to know there’s cats here at all.  
  
“You’ve both seen me disappear,” Sol begins. “When the tree fell. In the tunnels. Only here it is - I don’t disappear. I rewind.”  
  
“Rewind?” Holly asks, although she’s fairly sure what the word means. What Sol means.  
  
Sol shrugs. “That’s the word Midnight - a badger I used to know - used for it. It’s like taking one tunnel at a fork, and then going back and taking another. Except the tunnels are time, and the fork is a decision. Do you understand now?”  
  
Ivypaw’s staring at Sol, her gaping jaw betraying most of the same emotions that Holly is feeling. “You can travel in time?”  
  
“ _Rewind_  time,” Sol corrects. “An hour, a few days, maybe longer. With the tree, for example - I went backwards half a day, decided not to visit ThunderClan that afternoon. You weren’t supposed to remember me being there that day.”  
  
“Then why did we?” Ivypaw asks.  
  
“Now that,” says Sol, “would be telling. Sometimes cats remember bits and pieces of the wrong fork.” He waves his tail at Ivypaw. “You seem to have a talent for it.”  
  
Holly thinks back to her own memories of the tree falling, which haven’t become any clearer since the previous day. A voice, that’s all she has to trust Ivypaw’s story.  _This way, it’s safe here_. She was sure the voice was Sol’s, but without Ivypaw’s memories to back her up, it could’ve been anyone’s.   
  
“Wait,” Holly says. “If you weren’t actually there - in this… this fork, I mean - then who saved us from the tree?”  
  
“Who knows?” Sol says. “Maybe one of you found that path on your own that time. It’s not that hard to find - I’m surprised ThunderClan hasn’t started posting a guard there yet. Is that all you want to know? Because knowledge is power, and power costs.”  
  
Holly nods hastily, but Ivypaw gets there first. “In the tunnels, when you kept taking us back to that cave - what were you doing then?”  
  
“Rewinding all three of us. It was easier to get us out if I didn’t have you two stumbling around with the wrong memories. Now, is that-”  
  
He’s interrupted by the sound of cats crashing through the undergrowth, quite nearby, and shouts of  _Ivypaw! Holly!_  
  
“They’re looking for us,” Ivypaw hisses.  
  
“You think?” Sol says. “Goodbye for now. Just remember - the price of this knowledge is that you’re both going to stay quiet about this. And Holly, you know what you said you’d do.”  
  
Ivypaw scowls. “Why should I?”  
  
Sol’s pale, pale yellow eyes are fixed on the two of them. Holly feels fear trickle down her spine. “Because neither of you would’ve got out of those tunnels without me. And I can go back there any time. So keep your mouth shut, kit, unless you want me to take back my help.”  
  
And with that, he’s gone.  
  
-  
  
Holly and Ivypaw push their way through the willow branches towards the lakeshore, heading in the opposite direction to the one the voices are coming from. Holly feels the end of their conversation with Sol blurring in her mind as his rewinding - whatever he really means by that - takes effect. One thing, however, stays clear - Sol’s last words.  _Unless you want me to take back my help._  
  
Holly doesn’t doubt for a second that Sol means his threat. She’s seen Sol’s power in action - the times when he took her and Ivypaw with her are as clear in her mind as the memories of all the obstacles he guided them away from. The tunnels in flood are a labyrinth of dead ends and rockfalls and sudden waterfalls; if Sol was to abandon Holly and Ivypaw back there, they’d never find their way out. The only way to get out from under Sol’s paw is to do what he says until - hopefully, finally - he loses interest.  
  
“You can’t tell anyone about this,” she tells Ivypaw. “Not any of it. You can’t risk-”  
  
Ivypaw glowers at her paws. “Sure. I’m not that excited about getting killed, either.”  
  
They meet the search party about halfway back to the hollow. Firestar himself is at the head of the patrol, with Lion close behind. Brightheart and Squirrelflight complete the group.   
  
The Clan leader and two senior warriors - Holly doesn’t like to think about the level of seriousness this implies.  
  
Lion runs towards Holly as soon as the patrol comes into view. “Holly, are you alright? What were you doing?”  
  
Here it is. She hesitates, trying to come up with a plausible story, one that’s as close as possible to the truth, but doesn’t involve Sol, or the tunnels, or  _rewinding_.   
  
“I was looking for Ivypaw. She was missing, and I thought I knew where she was, so…”   
  
She trails off when Lion snorts. “Then why didn’t you tell someone? At least me or Jay? When you ran off like that - we thought you were in trouble.”  
  
“Sorry, Dad,” she snaps. “I didn’t realise I’d be this long, alright?”  
  
Nearby, Brightheart is talking to Ivypaw, probably giving her apprentice a similar lecture. She wonders what excuse Ivypaw’s giving for their absence, if any. Maybe they should’ve discussed that, instead of quizzing Sol about his terrifying power.  
  
Her shoulder aching badly now, she lets Lion support her back to the ThunderClan camp in near silence.  
  
-  
  
Later, when they’ve dried off and Cinderpelt’s put a fresh poultice on Holly’s shoulder, Firestar asks to see Holly and Ivypaw in his den.  
  
He talks to Ivypaw first, in private; Holly waits below the Highledge, studying the dirt floor of the hollow so she can’t see if any of her Clanmates are watching her. Nobody’s said anything to her face, but the whole Clan knows that she was missing, saw the search party go out. She’s only been here three moons, and already caused a major scene. What must they all think? What must Firestar think?  
  
By the time Ivypaw pushes past Holly on her way out, blue eyes stormy, Holly’s mouth is so dry with nerves that she can barely speak. Firestar calls for Holly; she limps up the rough stone steps and into the cave, blinking as her eyes adjust to the sudden dimness.  
  
“I’m disappointed in you, Holly,” Firestar says. “Until now I was pleased with how you and your brothers were adjusting. But this was a foolish mistake. As soon as you realised Ivypaw was missing, you should’ve reported to me or Greystripe, not gone after her by yourself.”  
  
Her pelt feels hot, like a kit being told off - Firestar’s scarier than Crowfeather ever was. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“I know you are,” Firestar says. “But you have to act more responsibly. Unless - have you and Ivypaw told the whole story?”   
  
Holly stiffens.  
  
“She got into difficulties while hunting, you went after her,” Firestar continues. “That’s all?”  
  
“Yeah, that’s it.”  
  
“Are you sure?” he presses. “You didn’t, for example, have a way of finding Ivypaw that only you could use? Or information about her whereabouts you didn’t want to explain?”  
  
The prophecy, she realises - of all ironies, Firestar’s trying to get her to admit she’s part of the prophecy. Relief rushes through her and she shakes her head firmly. “No, nothing.”   
  
“Very well,” Firestar says. “If you’re sure. I’ve told Ivypaw to do extra hunting duties to make up for the hunting patrols that were missed as a result of her disappearance. I suggest you help her.”  
  
“Yes, Firestar.” Sensing that she’s been dismissed, she eases herself to her paws, adding, “I’m really sorry.”  
  
“Apology accepted,” Firestar replies. “And Holly. I was an outsider in ThunderClan, once. I remember how it is. If there’s something you’re hiding - even if you think it reflects badly on you, even if you think no-one will believe you - you can tell me. Always.”  
  
“Yes, Firestar.”   
  
Maybe if she didn’t use Sol’s name, if she just hinted. She wants Firestar to trust her so badly. But it’s impossible, especially when Ivypaw’s also in danger. She leaves the cave and scrambles down from the Highledge, wincing when she puts too much weight on her wounded shoulder, and heads for the warriors’ den, where Jay and Lion are.  
  
If Firestar isn’t satisfied with her answer, he keeps his worries to himself.


End file.
